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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 









































































































* 



“I Am Planning to Go to College in the Fall" 


The Little 
Cockalorum 

By 

Wallis Simkins 



Illustrated by 
Ralph Dunkleberger 

THE PENN PUBLISHING 
COMPANY PHILADELPHIA 
1922 




COPYRIGHT 
1922 BY 
THE PENN 
PUBLISHING 
COMPANY 



The Little Cockalorum 


Made in the U. S. A. 


OCT -6 'll 

©C1A686097 


To all the Gerry s in the world who are 
brave enough to attempt the impossible 
this book is affectionately dedicated 



































. 


Introduction 


What is a cockalorum? When her father 
nicknamed Gerry Houston his Little Cocka- 
lorum he had in mind the cock who, while it is 
still dark, eagerly flaps his wings and crows to 
give the alarm that day is near. For like the 
little cock, Gerry’s impulsive spirit led her to 
crow and announce to the world things just as 
seemingly far off as daybreak is in the dark 
hour before dawn. But Gerry did more than 
her namesake. Her pride and courage made 
her bring to pass the almost impossible things 
she heralded in an unthinking, impulsive mo- 
ment. It was Gerry’s spirit and high courage 
that inspired this book. It is written for the 
benefit of the many little cockalorums in this 
world who may find encouragement in the his- 
tory of a girl who never acknowledged defeat 
and who could always find a way to the goal 
she had set herself. 

The Authors. 

Philadelphia , January, 1922 . 


Contents 


I. 

From Satin to Homespun . 



ii 

II. 

Surprises for Two . 



25 

III. 

Gerry Meets a China-Man 



41 

IV. 

Echoes from the Past 



59 

V. 

Sold to the Highest Bidder 



74 

VI. 

A New Neighbor 



89 

VII. 

A Glimpse of the Orient . 



105 

VIII. 

Gerry Makes a Sacrifice . 



129 

IX. 

Gerry Pours Tea 



142 

X. 

Haunted ? ... 



158 

XI. 

Open Sesame 



169 

XII. 

Miss Merrill Breaks a Resolution 


188 

XIII. 

Rocks Ahead ! . 



204 

XIV. 

Everyone Speaks at Once 



221 

XV. 

A Page from Romance 



240 

XVI. 

Just One Party After Another 


254 

XVII. 

For Better or Worse 



271 

XVIII. 

A Scrap of Paper 



283 

XIX. 

Lost, a Father . 



296 

XX. 

Good-Bye Oxford ! . 



306 


Illustrations 


I Am Planning to Go to College in the Fall 


Frontispiece 


“ First of All, I Want to Clean House ” 
u What Are You Two Up To ? ” 

They Idled Along .... 

“ I Sold the 4 Willow Tree * Outright ” 


PAGE 

61 

121 

209 

302 


The Little Cockalorum 














The Little Cockalorum 


CHAPTER I 

FROM SATIN TO HOMESPUN 

It was a day in late June, hot and close, as 
only such a day can be in New York. The 
great train shed of the huge station was full 
of noise and confusion. Everywhere vacation- 
ists, overburdened with bags, golf sticks, ten- 
nis racquets, and hat-boxes, were pushing their 
way, asking questions, mopping their brows. 

Down the cement platform, where the trains, 
like long-hinged glowworms waited, a girl 
pushed her way through the crowd, peering as 
she passed into the brilliantly lighted windows 
of the dining-cars where the silver and glass 
and lighted candles made a festive showing in 
spite of the heat. She was followed by a tall, 
impressive-looking chauffeur in summer livery, 
carrying a diminutive hand-bag. Where a 
11 


12 The Little Cockalorum 

white-coated porter lounged against the side of 
a Pullman car he stopped. 

“ Here, Mademoiselle? ” he called to the girl 
in front. She turned. 

“ Oh, no, Henri, not the Pullman. I am 
taking the day coach,” and she continued up 
the line of crowded cars to the front. The 
chauffeur followed dutifully, depositing the 
small bag at her feet. “ Don’t tell Auntie — 
about the day coach, I mean,” the girl’s voice 
sank to a confidential whisper. 

“ But no, Mademoiselle. Henri is ” 

and he put his finger to his lips. 

“ She might think it funny, hut you see I 
really did not save enough money for the chair 
car, and besides this is lots more fun.” 

Henri’s large brown eyes were sober, but 
behind his long black moustache lurked a smile. 
He knew “Auntie ” would not approve; there 
were so many things Auntie did not approve 
of. And then the car gave a jerk and from 
outside came the call of “All aboard! ” 

“ Good-bye, Henri,” she said, holding out 
her little gloved hand. “ Thank you so much 
for helping me, and for the nice things you did 
for me in New York.” Then Henri’s stiffness 


From Satin to Homespun 13 

disappeared. A broad smile spread over his 
face. He bowed low with the grace of a 
chevalier over the proffered hand. 

“ Mademoiselle is kind! ” he whispered, and 
was gone. With him went the last of Geral- 
dine Houston's annual excursion into the 
realms of luxury. Back to homespun, well 
patched at that, was her fate for the next 
eleven months, unless 

“ Whew! ” Gerry pulled off the smart lit- 
tle sports hat of soft gray-blue straw with its 
simple cockade of ribbon at the side, shook 
loose her short golden brown hair which lay 
damp upon her forehead. It was pretty hair, 
almost straight — everything about her was 
straight — but with just enough spring at the 
ends to give it a look of being alive, like Gerry 
herself. There was a story about that clipped 
hair. It had been one of her impulsive boasts 
that she had the habit of making, and then had 
to carry out to save her face. It had taken 
some time for the hair she so boldly clipped to 
take on that neat, well-groomed look, and the 
weeks of straggly ends had almost cured her of 
her habit of boasting. Almost! 

The train was moving now through concrete 


14 Lhe Little Cockalorum 

tunnel walls. Would it never get out to the 
country, where one could get a breath of air? 
Gerry removed the coat of her trim little gray- 
blue flannel sports suit, and loosened the top 
button of her exquisite white crepe de chine 
shirt-waist. “ Oh,” she sighed with relief, as 
she slid down on the plush seat and leaned her 
head against the cushion. A woman in back 
of her, who had seen the very correct chauffeur 
putting this young girl on the train, was sur- 
prised to see her heels, in their blue silk stock- 
ings, slip out of the dark brown oxfords to cool 
off. She did not know that this was the first 
time for three long weeks that Gerry, released 
from her aunt’s eagle eye, had been able to 
“ slump ” and do as she pleased. 

As the seemingly endless rows of tall apart- 
ment houses sped by the window, with their 
monotonous lines of laundry festooned be- 
tween them, and the bedding airing in the win- 
dows, Gerry’s mind went back to the hot city 
she was leaving. She was glad now that her 
Aunt Geraldine had cut short the visit of this 
country niece, for she doubted if she could have 
stood another day of that stifling city. Aunt 
Geraldine was funny, Gerry smiled to herself, 


From Satin to Homespun 15 

so positive about what she wanted. Imagine 
anyone else cutting short the visit of a guest 
who had been invited for a month, just to ac- 
cept a visit to the mountains herself! 

At first Gerry had thought that her Aunt 
Geraldine had been cross with her after that 
fatal talk. It had happened only a few days 
ago. Aunt Geraldine, in her fussy pink silk 
negligee and her lace and rosebud cap just a 
bit awry on her iron-gray pompadour, had sud- 
denly astounded her young niece sitting in the 
pretty turquoise satin breakfast coat she had 
bought for her across the gate-leg table from 
which they ate their breakfast. Aunt Geral- 
dine lived in an apartment which made up for 
its lack of room in its furnishings, that fitted 
like the parts of a bright Japanese puzzle into 
the corners and floor spaces. 

“ What are you going to do with yourself, 
my dear,” Aunt Geraldine had said, sipping 
her third cup of coffee, “ now that you are 
through High School? Or hasn’t it occurred 
to your improvident Houston mind to think 
that far ahead? I suppose your father intends 
to keep you home like a lady in shabby leisure, 
as he has Elizabeth? ” 


16 The Little Cockalorum 

'Gerry had flushed at this, but this was the 
sort of thing that Aunt Geraldine was always 
saying, and she was so good in other ways. 
“ I really haven’t had time ” she had be- 

gun. 

“ Time! Nonsense. It doesn’t take months 
for everyone to make up her mind. I’m going 
to give you a chance now to make yours up 
quickly. How would you like to go to col- 
lege? ” 

“ College! ” Gerry’s voice had been like a 
far-away echo, she was so surprised. College! 
The answer to all her hopes and secret aspira- 
tions. The thing she wanted most on this 
earth. And there her aunt was shoving it 
right under her nose, and wanting an answer 
immediately. Aunt Geraldine was a wonder! 
But what was this she had found herself say- 
ing? Almost without realizing it her head had 
gone up in that proud jerk that always her- 
alded a boast, and was that she, Gerry Hous- 
ton, who had said, “ That is very kind of you, 
Aunt Geraldine, but Father has been intend- 
ing for some time to send me to college this 
fall.” It was out, she had done it again, made 
a boast that she could not possibly hope to 


From Satin to Homespun 17 

carry out. But she had not taken back her 
words, even when her auntie seemed so in- 
credulous that it was a temptation to say it was 
all a joke, and to accept the wonderful gift that 
her aunt had laid at her feet. There was more 
than Gerry’s own honor at stake here. She 
had not said, “ I am going to college this fall,” 
but “ My father is going to send me to col- 
lege.” That was a different thing. She would 
have to prove that her father, her dear, dream- 
ing, improvident father, could somehow or 
other send her away to school. It was impos- 
sible. 

But Gerry was glad she had said that. It 
was humiliating to have to hear Aunt Geral- 
dine always saying those slurring things about 
her family, and she did not like flaring up as 
she was sometimes forced to do to keep her 
aunt silent about them. 

Gerry eyed the toes of her brand new ox- 
fords kicked out in front of her, the shiny cover 
of her new ivory fitted bag, the beautiful tai- 
lored lines of the suit coat swinging from its 
hook, the new silk gloves and shiny black 
leather purse lying in her lap. This was the 
way she always came home from Aunt Geral- 


i8 The Little Cockalorum 

dine’s, with a brand new outfit from head to 
toe, not to mention the half-dozen new frocks 
and pretty white muslin underthings in the 
shabby little humped-lid trunk riding ahead in 
the baggage car. Decidedly the best thing 
about going to Auntie’s was the coming home. 
Gerry laughed to herself at this contradiction. 
The conductor arriving at that moment for her 
ticket smiled down into the pretty oval face 
with its frame of golden brown hair, the rich 
flush on her golden tan cheeks, the bright eager 
eyes, one blue and the other hazel — which gave 
Gerry an odd look that people could not at 
first explain — and the gay crooked little smile 
which everyone who loved Gerry loved best of 
all. 

“ Pretty hot,” he said as he punched the 
ticket marked Oxford. “ It’ll be better when 
we strike the country and the Sound. There’s 
a diner in the rear, Miss, when you feel hungry 
for dinner.” 

“ Thank you,” said Gerry, “ but I’m dining 
right here. I’d love to go back for just a glass 
of iced tea or something so I could sit at one 
of the little tables, but you see I am almost on 
my last cent.” 


From Satin to Homespun 19 

The conductor laughed and moved on. But 
later when Gerry had pulled out the sandwich 
&nd piece of cake she had begged from the cook 
that morning, and was trying to pretend it was 
some of that delicious salad and pastry she had 
had the day before at a smart studio luncheon 
to which her aunt had taken her, he came back 
with a tin cup full of lemonade which he 
handed to her awkwardly but genially. “ I 
couldn’t bring the table and the little lamp,” 
he said, “ but I thought this might make the 
lunch go down better.” 

“ Oh, thank you, ever and ever so much,” 
Gerry cried. This seemed more like home, 
this brimming cup of lemonade, even though it 
was a little sour, of home where folks did things 
for others and passed hot, sweet-smelling 
things under linen napkins over the hedge. It 
was awful, Gerry thought, to live in a huge 
brick and cement beehive year in and year out, 
and not even to say “ Good-morning! ” to the 
other bees whose cells adjoined yours. 

The train was now threading its way among 
low hills. The sun had set in a huge ball of 
fire, prophesying heat for to-morrow, but it 
had left a soft pink afterglow that clothed the 


20 "The Little Cockalorum 

country in a haze as mysterious as a face be-* 
hind pink chiffon. Here and there tiny lights 
pricked through the twilight from farmhouses 
set alone in their groves and fields. The sky 
began to turn to lavender. A single bright 
star blinked “ Good-evening! ” Oh, it was so 
beautiful, thought Gerry. She hadn’t really 
seen a sunset since she left home, and how she 
reveled in the color! 

“Star bright, star light, 

The first star I see to-night, 7 ’ 

she began. “ I wish I would, I wish I 

might ” Oh, how she did wish she could 

find a way to cany out that boast she had made 
so unthinkingly the day before to her aunt. 
“ I wish I would, I wish I might, find some 
way to make five hundred dollars this sum- 
mer! ” Under the car the wheels ground out, 
“ You will boast, you will boast,” but Gerry, 
with her natural optimism, changed their 
song to, “ I’ll soon be there, I’ll soon be 
there.” 

Her mind rushed ahead of the train to the 
station. They would all be there waiting, at 
least Elizabeth and Ted would, and her father, 


21 


From Satin to Homespun 

his finger marking the page of one of his old 
books, would be on the old stone step with his 
dear, beaming smile. And he would draw her 
close, and then hold her off and say, “ My dear, 
you look more than ever like your dear 
mother.” And then they would all weep just 
a little bit, and then Ted, the rascal, would say 
something funny, and they would all go inside 
and close the battered old white door with its 
huge brass knocker, and sit down to the per- 
fectly delicious supper that only Elizabeth 
could make out of bread and butter, tea, and 
damson preserves. There might be worn 
places in the damask table-cloth, and Father 
might accidentally pick out the tall mahogany 
chair with the broken leg, and there would be 
chips in the edges of the old blue willowware 
china, but it would be home. 

That much their mother had left them when 
she died three years before, of pneumonia said 
the coroner’s report, of a broken heart said her 
husband, accusing himself of being a failure 
and a disappointment to her, of poverty and 
under-nourishment said the wealthy Aunt Ger- 
aldine in the city, who had opposed her sister’s 
marriage to the young artist, even though he 


22 "The Little Cockalorum 

was then apparently on the verge of making a 
great name for himself. “ These artists,” 
Aunt Geraldine was accustomed to pound into 
Gerry’s unwilling ears, “ ought never to marry. 
They are not fit to bring up a family. They 
are lazy, extravagant. I told all tills to your 
mother eighteen years ago, but she would not 
listen to me. She just tossed her head the way 
you do yours sometimes and said, ‘ He is not 
lazy, he is a genius, and some day the world 
will know it ! ’ Ah, well, she found out differ- 
ent. I’m sure I do not know what she would 
have done if she had not inherited the old 
homestead.” Aunt Geraldine had expressed 
this firm disapproval of her sister’s choice by 
never coming near the old dilapidated country 
house where her sister and her adoring artist 
husband lived, thrived for a while, and then 
suddenly sank almost to poverty with their 
.three small children ; but she also expressed her 
love for that proud, loyal sister by asking the 
oldest child, named Geraldine for herself, once 
a year to visit her for a month in New York. 
And it was because she felt that her mother 
looked down and approved this visit to her 
brusque but kind-hearted aunt that Gerry con- 


From Satin to Homespun 23 

tinued to go and stand hearing her family 
criticized. 

Gerry wondered now whether her mother 
watching, as she firmly believed, somewhere up 
beyond that amethyst sky that was turning to 
deep sapphire, had approved of her boast. 
She was afraid not. But the mischief was 
done, and it was now her problem to make good 
and live up to the reputation she had gained 
for carrying out her boasts at all costs. This 
was going to be the hardest thing she had ever 
yet encountered in all her boastful experiences. 
But, added to the fact that she must make good 
for her own sake, she had also to make good for 
her fathers. And the goal — college! How 
she had dreamed and planned for it, and put it 
aside in her thoughts and brought it out again 
to play with. If she had not been so hastj^, she 
could have gone properly on Aunt Geraldine’s 
money. 

“ But I am glad, yes, I am glad that I did 
boast, for now I will have to do it all myself, 
which is better, Mother mine,” murmured 
Gerry, talking into the sapphire sky above her. 
‘‘And I wonder sometimes, too, Mother, if it 
isn’t a good plan to come right out and make 


24 The Little Cockalorum 

these impossible boasts, for then I simply have 
to live up to them! Maybe that is really why 
Ido it! ” 

“Oxford!” called the conductor from the 
door. Hurriedly grasping her coat and shiny 
bag, Gerry almost fell off the steps of the train. 

“ I didn’t dream I was so near! ” she gasped 
at the amused conductor. And then she was 
smothered in Elizabeth’s arms, and Ted’s 
grimy hand was tugging at her bag, and they 
were climbing the steep little street that led to 
High Street where, down beyond the shops 
and big houses, lay home, snuggling behind its 
lilac bushes and broken-palinged fence. 


CHAPTER II 


SURPRISES FOR TWO 

It rained that night, and the next morning 
dawned cool and delightful. “ Oh, Bess, you 
don’t know how good it is to be home and do 
exactly as you please! ” said Gerry, tugging on 
the old leather strap which bound her trunk 
until it broke. 

“ There,” said Elizabeth soberly, “ you’ve 
broken it, Gerry, and that old trunk won’t hold 
another trip without a strap.” Gerry smiled 
good-naturedly at the reproving Elizabeth. It 
was the younger sister, not quite sixteen, who 
mothered them all, and kept the shabby little 
household on its good behavior. 

“ Never mind, Bess, I suppose I’ll have to 
have a new trunk before I go away to college 
in the fall.” 

“ College? ” echoed Elizabeth. But there 
was not the same tone of glad surprise in her 
voice as there had been in Gerry’s when the 
subject had first been broached to her. Eliza- 
25 


26 The Little Cockalorum 

beth took everything in life from crockery to 
catechism or even college as it came. She had 
no imagination to see beyond the present. 
Even now Gerry could have told how she 
would be dressed at the first masked party 
given to the college Freshmen, but Elizabeth 
was different. Now she repeated, “ College? ” 
much as she would have said “Artichokes ! ” 
when she had ordered cabbage. 

“ I’m going, you know,” volunteered Gerry, 
pulling off the layers of tissue paper from a 
luscious pink Georgette hat pinned securely in 
the old cracked trunk tray. “ Look, isn’t it a 
beauty, Elizabeth?” and she placed it on her 
sister’s primly braided mouse-colored hair. 

Elizabeth examined her reflection in the 
mottled glass of the old mirror critically. “ It 
looks much better on you. I can’t wear that 
kind of a hat with my hair this way,” pointing 
to the coronet braid which wound itself a thick 
strand around her head. 

“ Then change your hair; nobody wears hers 
that way any more.” Gerry was emphatic. 

“ But I have so much,” protested Elizabeth 
calmly, “ and, besides, I like it this way. It is 
easy to fix, and keeps neater when I work.” 


Surprises for Two 27 

“ Oh, very well,” but Gerry sighed for her 
placid sister as she laid the Georgette hat on 
her own bed. 

It wasn’t much fun showing off her clothes 
to Elizabeth, she decided, as she hung up the 
pretty yellow gingham, and the serviceable 
brown linen, and the gay little orchid-colored 
organdie in the tall walnut wardrobe that filled 
one end of the room between the windows. 

“You never get excited over clothes, do you, 
Betsy? ” she said at last when the prize exhibit, 
a lovely clinging Georgette in the same gray- 
blue as her suit had not brought out the com- 
ment she had expected. “ I selected this in- 
stead of an evening dress,” she said, holding it 
up against her flushed cheeks, “ because I 
thought I would have more use for it.” 

“ Of course,” approved Elizabeth. “ You 
were right.” And then, “ I like to see you 
have pretty things, Gerry ; please don’t think I 
don’t; it’s just that somehow they don’t inter- 
est me. I like the feeling of nice crash dish 
towels, and soft woolen blankets, and lovely 
polished silver better than anything, I guess. 
Oh, how I wish we could have nice things 
around us, instead of broken old furniture and 


28 The Little Cockalorum 

cracked walls, and a toppling down barn. If 
Father would only ” 

Gerry’s arms were around her. “ Bess dar- 
ling, I never dreamed before how much these 
things meant to you. Just because you seemed 
so contented and kept us all so happy with the 
tiny bit of income Father has I thought you 
did not mind. But cheer up, things have got 
to be better somehow. When I get through 
college ” 

Elizabeth dried her eyes gingerly on the cor- 
ner of her clean percale apron. “ When you 
get through college Aunt Geraldine will feel 
that you owe your whole life to her then ” 

“ Oh, but I’m not going on Auntie’s money, 

Bess. I’m going on ” She was going to 

say “ my own,” but remembering her boast, 
said instead, “ on Father’s.” 

“ But, Gerry, Father can’t do it. Some- 
times it is all I can do to squeeze out the few 
dollars he gets for just enough to eat. He 
needs some new clothes, poor man, right now, 
and I don’t know what he’ll do for a fall suit, 
for I had old Mrs. Snyder cut his last wool one 
over for Ted.” 

Geri^ turned to the window to fight the 


Surprises for Two 29 

tears that threatened to spill out of her usually 
merry eyes. “ I suppose it was foolish of me 
to brag that he could send me to college,” she 
said, partly to Elizabeth, who was putting 
clean paper in Gerry’s bureau drawers, and 
laying the fresh muslins in neat piles, and 
partly to the old garden with its crumbling 
sun-dial and walks overgrown with grass, “ but 
I am glad I did. Somebody has to do some- 
thing to put some pep in this family; you are 
needed right here at home; Ted is too young, 

Father ” Gerry stopped and threw up 

her hands helplessly. “ So I guess it’s up to 
me, and college seems to be the first big step. 
Now I’m going out to see Father and tell him 
that he is going to send me to college in the 
fall, though goodness knows how! ” 

She found her father in the big makeshift 
studio which years ago he had^fixed up in the 
old barn. “ The Roost ” they had called it as 
children, and the name still stuck. He sat 
there before his big easel gazing out through 
the wooden doors through which sweet-smell- 
ing hay had once been tossed, at a summer 
landscape of green meadows sloping to the 
river which would have been inspiring enough 


30 The Little Cockalorum 

for almost anyone. Above him a large part of 
the sloping roof had been torn out to make a 
skylight. It was a delightful spot, much more 
practical than its occupant. 

“ May I come up, Father? ” said Gerry as 
she poked her head above the trap-door which 
was always raised against the wall. 

“ Certainly, my dear. I have missed you. 
It has been — let’s see how long? ” 

“ Three weeks all but two days,” said Gerry 
promptly. “And oh, Father, it is good to be 
home,” she added as she sat herself on the arm 
of the worn old leather chair that looked like 
an enormous over-ripe chestnut bursting out of 
its shell. Her father wore a big brown paint- 
stained smock and his customary summer suit 
of heavy Japanese pongee, a relic of better 
days, whose many patches and launderings 
only Elizabeth knew. He was accustomed to 
wear his soft silky brown hair rather long, in 
fact had to be coaxed to submit to the practical 
Elizabeth’s shears; his soft brown eyes were 
kindliness personified, his delicate oval face the 
exact shape of Gerry’s, and his slim, sensitive 
fingers somehow suggested a strength and 
power that his tall, thin figure lacked. As 


Surprises for Two 31 

Gerry threw her arms around him, she won- 
dered how she could for one minute have al- 
lowed her aunt to say anything unkind about 
this dearest of men. 

“ What are you doing now, Father mine? ” 
she asked, examining the canvas which her fa- 
ther had evidently not touched that day. 

“ I found a beautiful effect of light and 
shade from that rickety old bridge down by the 
canal a few days ago, those tall trees almost 
black against the sky and the sun turning that 
field back of them to pure gold. And the 
whole thing repeated again in the water as in 
a mirror.” 

“ It’s stunning, Father,” Gerry caught her 
breath for an instant in sheer delight, then im- 
pulsively, “ and what a gorgeous cover it 
would make.” 

Her father gave her a pained look. “ My 
dear, we have talked all this out before. I 
have managed to live for a good many years 
without cheapening my art on magazine covers 
or breakfast food ads ” 

“ But, Father, you would not have to 
cheapen it. It is not cheapening a thing to 
give hundreds and hundreds of people a chance 


32 The Little Cockalorum 

to see and enjoy what only we four see. I’m 
not asking you to do ads, but magazine covers 
just once in a while. They pay so well, I’ve 
often heard they do, and oh, Father, I wish you 
would just try ! ” Then, her father remaining 
silent, she straightened and said, “ Father, I 
am planning to go to college in the fall, and 
what is more, you are going to send me ! ” 

Her father glanced up quickly at the ani- 
mated face of his younger daughter, and 
smiled slowly. “ I fancy my Little Cocka- 
lorum has been crowing again! ” 

“ Yes, I have, and I’m not sorry, and I’m 
going to carry out my boast as I always have.” 
Then she told her father the whole story of 
Aunt Geraldine and her offer. 

When she had finished he was silent for a 
few seconds. 

“ Yes, I am glad too that you did not accept 
it from her, but really, my dear Gerry, I don’t 
see how I can help you to carry out your plans. 
If there were anything I could do to help my 

ambitious little daughter ” 

“ You can if you will, Father, but I suppose 
it is useless to argue any more. The only thing 
I can see is for me to make the money and then 


Surprises for Two 33 

give it to you so you can pay my college 
bills.” 

“ But, my dear ” he began, but was in- 

terrupted by Ted’s voice calling from the gar- 
den, “ Gerry, here’s the grocery man and I 
can’t find Bess anywhere! ” 

Gerry let herself down the round-runged 
ladder to find the grocery wagon drawn up at 
the gate, and the order clerk with his book open 
waiting at the side door. 

“ Dave Manning! ” she squealed with de- 
light, as the grocery boy turned his full six feet 
to look at her. 

“ Why, Gerry,” he cried, “ I didn’t know 
you were home. Say, you look fine. How’s 
little old New York? ” 

“All right, Dave, only Oxford’s much nicer. 
But how long have you been working for old 
Mr. Becket? ” 

“ Ever since school closed. I’m going to 
college in the fall, you know, if I can get 
enough money. I’ve been working every sum- 
mer since I entered High School, but this year 
so many of the mills and offices are on part 
time, it isn’t easy to get in. Hence — the over- 
alls!” 


34 The Little Cockalorum 

“ Dave,” said Gerry solemnly, “ you don’t 
know how lucky you are. I wish I could wear 
overalls or do something, I mean, that would 
bring me in a lot of money. I’m going to col- 
lege, too, in the fall.” 

“ Say, are you really? ” exclaimed Dave, his 
nice boyish face lighting up under his mop of 
yellow hair. “ That’s the spirit, Gerry. Good 
for you! How much have you got saved? ” 

“Not a cent, not one little bronze cent!” 
Gerry answered dramatically. 

“ Whew! you must have struck a fairy god- 
mother or something, then.” 

Gerry laughed. The state of the Houston 
finances was pretty well known in Oxford. 
“ No, but something pretty unusual will have 
to happen to make it come true. You see, 
Dave, I went and boasted again ! ” 

Dave grinned. “ I don’t know but what 
that is a pretty good habit, Gerry. And if it 
gets you to college this fall, well — I’m for 
crowing whenever you get a chance. Say, do 
you suppose Elizabeth wants any strawberries 
this morning? ” 

“ Nope.” Gerry shook her head. “ We 
have to wait until our own grow for such lux- 


Surprises for "Two 35 

uries. Listen, Dave, if you hear of anything 
I could do, anything at all, let me know, won’t 
you? ” 

Dave promised faithfully, and was off driv- 
ing the grouchy Mr. Becket’s old gray horse on 
his daily rounds. Gerry watched him turn the 
corner below, and then went slowly into the 
house. If she could only drive a wagon — any- 
thing, to get that necessary money. 

She found Elizabeth up-stairs making beds. 
“ Here, I’ll help,” Gerry offered, taking one 
side of the sheet. 

“ Never mind,” said Bess, “ I know how you 
hate to make beds.” 

“ There’s nothing I hate so much right now 
as not doing anything,” said Gerry as she 
tucked in her side of the sheet. “ Have you 
seen anything of Adine since I have been away, 
Bess ? ” she asked as they patted the plump 
pillows into shape. 

“ Not a thing, though someone told me she 
was at church last Sunday.” 

“ She must be better again then. I’m crazy 
to see her. I think I’ll run over right away. 
I’ll wash the lunch dishes to make up.” So 
Gerry put on the brown linen, knowing how 


3 6 The Little Cockalorum 

well Adine Sewell would appreciate it. Adine 
was Gerry’s particular friend, the only child of 
wealthy parents, petted and pampered because 
of the weak back which had made her an in- 
valid off and on since babyhood. Gerry had 
come to know her in a brief term when Adine 
had coaxed to be allowed to go to high school, 
and later when the poor back gave out, Gerry 
had been a self-elected tutor to carry on the 
school work with Adine at home. They were 
the closest of friends, for they shared every- 
thing, their love of books, of beautiful things 
with which Adine was generously surrounded, 
their hopes and dreams. 

Taking the short cut through Becket’s pas- 
ture over to the big Sewell house, Gerry was 
rather downcast by the news she would have to 
bring her chum, for she would be going away 
in the fall and poor Adine would have to stay 
at home. She would not have told her except 
that she would need Adine’s sound advice and 
help. 

She found her swinging idly in the huge cre- 
tonne-covered swing on the Sewells’ wicker- 
furnished porch. In spite of her suffering 
Adine was a beautiful girl, short, with just the 


Surprises for 'Two 37 

suggestion of a hunch which her lovely clothes 
covered skillfully, but with long, slim hands 
and feet, large dreamy blue eyes, and hair so 
black it was almost blue. She always wore it 
coiled low at her neck to further hide the poor 
hunched back. 

Adine laid her magazine aside and rose 
slowly from her swing to greet Gerry, who lit- 
erally picked her from the floor in the joy of 
her embrace. “ Gerry, Gerry, it’s good to see 
you back. You spoil me completely. No one 
else satisfies me the way you do. You darling, 
let’s see your new dress ! ” 

Gerry stood off to be admired. It was go- 
ing to be very hard to break the news to Adine. 
They chatted along for a while swinging the 
warm summer morning away idly. Then 
Adine stopped suddenly. “ But I haven’t told 
you the best of all, or at least pretty nearly the 
best,” she said, looking at Gerry with smiling 
eyes that were just the least bit sad. “ Gerry, 
I’m going to Griffin in the fall. The doctor 
says if I am careful ” 

But Gerry would not give her a chance to 
go on. “ Oh, that is absolutely the loveliest 
thing I have ever heard. Listen, Adine, we 


38 *The Little Cockalorum 

can go to college together. For I am going, 
too, in the fall. Do you hear, I am going, 
too!” And she astonished the perplexed 
Adine by breaking into a foolish dance and 
waving her arms high above her head. 

“ But, Gerry, tell me, how? Did Aunt Ger- 
aldine? ” 

“ Yes, but I’m not going on her money.” 

“ But how? ” 

“ I don’t know, and I don’t care. I’m just 
going, that’s all, and now that you can go, too, 
I am so happy I could just sit right down and 
cry ! ” Which she proceeded to do. 

Of course she took Adine into her confi- 
dence, and they talked so long and seriously 
over ways and means that luncheon was an- 
nounced and Gerry had to stay. It was a cozy 
little lunch, served daintily in the blue and 
white breakfast alcove which Adine and her 
mother used when Mr. Sewell was not at home. 

Mrs. Sewell heard the news with her usual 
calm but interested manner. “ That is splen- 
did, Gerry. I admire your courage, my dear. 
But five hundred dollars is a lot of money to 
raise in two months. I am going to tell you 
what Mr. Sewell and I were talking over the 


Surprises for Two 39 

other night. We are just a little worried over 
letting Adine go away from home, but we 
agree with the doctor that if she does not 
overdo, it ought to be splendid for her. We 
were so sorry then that you were not going 
with her. For just a minute or so we con- 
sidered asking you to go, but we both felt, and 
rightly too,” she added quickly, noting the red 
spots in Gerry’s cheeks, “ that you would not 
accept. But now that you are determined to 
go anyway, let me ask you a favor. Won’t 
you make a special effort for us to look after 
Adine? To see that she does not overdo, to 
help her a little with her studies as you have 
been doing all along? If you could manage 
that, I am sure Mr. Sewell and I would feel 
better. Then we could send you a little allow- 
ance each month to make things go easier* 
Please think it over ! ” 

Gerry did not answer immediately. She 
was mastering her impulse to retort quickly, 
“ Thank you, I am sure I can manage very 
well, Mrs. Sewell ! ” When she did speak it 
was slowly, as if measuring her words, “ There 
is not a thing I would not do for Adine, you 
know that, Mrs. Sewell, and I promise you can 


40 The hittle Cockalorum 

rely upon me. But as for the allowance, can’t 
we let that rest? If I need it I will not hesi- 
tate to ask for it.” 

But as Gerry went home through the hot- 
scented pasture she threw herself down under 
a gnarled old apple-tree, one of the few left 
from the large orchard which had once be- 
longed to the house. It was very peaceful and 
quiet there. Often in other summers she had 
lain there to thresh out her problems. 

Now as she threw her arms over her head 
and gazed into the low-swinging branches 
above, she could see no answer to her big ques- 
tion. Still something told her, her faith in her 
world, her faith in herself, that all would come 
right. 

“ It’s a great old world, and you can get 
anything you want if you only work hard 
enough for it!” she said to herself, and went 
whistling through the garden to wash the be- 
lated luncheon dishes. 


CHAPTER III 


GERRY MEETS A CHINA-MAN 

The June sun was pouring its hot rays into 
the large low room which the two Houston 
girls shared before Elizabeth awoke the next 
day. Great was her surprise when she found 
only an empty mound of tossed covers beside 
her instead of the usually sleeping Gerry. No- 
body ever rose before Elizabeth in the Houston 
house. She glanced at the old painted wooden 
clock hanging on the wall at the foot of the 
bed. Only half-past six and Gerry was up! 
Something must be wrong! 

Elizabeth dressed quickly and descended the 
creaking old stairs. The back door into the 
silent garden was ajar, but no Gerry was in 
sight. Elizabeth, shrugging her shoulders at 
the oddity of this older sister, whose next move 
it was never safe to predict, began the making 
of the wood-fire in the old built-in stove which 
was to boil the morning coffee. Its aroma was 
filling the house and a batch of tiny popovers 
41 


42 The Little Cockalorum 

were living up to their name in the oven when 
Gerry finally appeared, waving a morning 
paper and calling breathlessly: 

“ Got something to eat, Elizabeth? I have 
to hurry. I’m going to Springfield! ” 

“ How are you going to get there?” inquired 
the practical Elizabeth suspiciously, who knew 
the state of Gerry’s finances and the cost of the 
trolley fare to the nearest city. 

“ Struck luck! I was worrying so about 
getting something to do that I could not sleep, 
so I got up and went down to the station for a 
Springfield paper to read the ads. And while 
I was sitting there on a baggage truck thinking 
it all over, who should come along but Dave 
Manning on his way to Becket’s barn. He has 
to run into Springfield for some things at the 
wholesale house and he is going to give me a 
lift on the truck. Whew, this coffee’s hot! ” 
Elizabeth watched the impatient Gerry try- 
ing to cool her burnt tongue. “ Gerry, you’re 
not going to ride into town on a grocery 
truck? ” 

“ Why not? I think it’s a lark. Of course 

I’d much rather go in a Rolls-Royce, but ” 

with an expressive shrug. 


Gerry Meets a China-Man 43 

“ What are you going to do when you get 
there? ” said Elizabeth in her best wet-blanket 
manner. 

“ Find a job. Look, there are oodles of 
them, clerks and stenographers, and secre- 
taries.” 

“ But you don’t know stenography,” pur- 
sued the relentless Elizabeth. 

44 Listen, little sister,” Gerry’s voice was 
confidential, 44 I shall take a job at ten per, 
putting little white cards into little brown 
boxes in such a way that nobody but myself can 
find them. File clerk they will call me, and 
then the boss recognizing my superior ability 
will come in at the end of the first week and 
say, 4 1 beg your pardon. Miss Houston, for 
undervaluing you; hereafter you will be my 
private secretary at a salary of fifty per week. 
Ten weeks — that would just about do it! ” 

Elizabeth raised puzzled eyes from the pop- 
overs she was turning out to Gerry’s sober face. 
44 You’re fooling,” she said slowly. 

But just then the sound of a horn came from 
the gate. 44 There’s Dave now. Here, give 
me a couple of those nice hot ones, and tell 
Father I have gone to seek my fortune in the 


44 7 *he Little Cockalorum 

big cru-el city.” And Gerry was off in her 
smart little yellow gingham dress and pretty 
blue sports hat. 

In spite of her bravado in front of Eliza- 
beth she was not so carefree as she had seemed. 
This business of finding work, profitable work, 
was not so easy. True, there were want ads, 
plenty of them, but nothing that promised the 
money she needed. 

“ Where are you going first? ” asked Dave, 
as they rode slowly down the shady river road, 
the sweet scent of the honeysuckle and roses 
from the gardens making it seem almost like 
a dream. 

“ There are several places right near to- 
gether here that want clerks and girls for office 
work. I’ll take a job of office boy if I can’t 
do better, and take a chance on making more 
money on the side.” 

Dave looked ahead straight down the road. 
He was silent for a few moments, then he said, 
“ It is awfully hard to earn five hundred dol- 
lars, Gerry, and as for trying to earn it after 
you go to college, that is harder yet, especially 
for a girl. I admire your pluck, but why don’t 
you wait a year, you’re young yet, and get 


Gerry Meets a China-Man 45 

something, a regular job that you can save 
from, like a position in the library at home, I 
hear there is to be a vacancy there in August/’ 

“ Ugh, that musty old place. You could 
plant potatoes behind some of those books, 
Dave; besides I can’t wait that long. You 
forget I have said I am going to college this 
fall ” 

“ But suppose you can’t raise the money? ” 
Dave’s own hard experience made him pessi- 
mistic. 

“ In my lexicon, Mr. Manning, there is no 
such word as can’t. Here, have another pop- 
over! ” 

And so they lumbered along until they 
reached the edge of the city, Dave’s errand 
taking him to the warehouses down by the 
river. Gerry, consulting the old town clock on 
the court-house which topped a high hill in the 
small city’s center, found she had almost half 
an hour to spare before any of the offices would 
open. She amused herself looking in the win- 
dows of the shops. At one window of beauti- 
ful printed linens and rosy cretonnes she was 
so enchanted by the medley of colors that she 
forgot the time, and when she arrived at the 


46 The Little Cockalorum 

first place she had selected, it was quarter after 
nine. 

“ Too late! ” said the man. “ We have a girl 
already.” 

Fifteen minutes ! It did not take them long 
to decide, thought Gerry, as she hurried to the 
next place. No, they were not suited, but 
would she be permanent, looking over her 
fashionable clothes and evident appearance of 
a girl of leisure. 

“We want someone we can promote 
in this office,” said the interested looking man 
who interviewed her. “ My private secretary 
has just left to be married, and there is an- 
other break in the ranks to be filled soon from 
the office force. Now we need a new office 
girl. If you will promise to stay with us you 
can see the chance for advancement! ” 

Gerry’s cheeks flushed. Her little joke of 
the morning might almost come true, but she 
could not take the position under false pre- 
tenses. “No, I wouldn’t be permanent,” she 
said, “ because I am planning to go to college 
in the fall.” 

“ I thought as much,” said the man, and 
Gerry was dismissed. At all the other offices 


Gerry Meets a China- Man 47 

the same thing, or something similar, was her 
fate. Once she was told she was too good for 
the job, at another she was too young, at an- 
other even too old. 

It was almost noon, and Gerry was hot, 
hungry and heart-sick. Seeking the shadiest 
bench she could find in the public square, she 
unfolded her paper and again perused the ad- 
vertisements. There was nothing left, noth- 
ing but an odd little one at the end of the 
column. 

Wanted — Assistant housekeeper, one who 
besides being familiar with housework, loves 
fine china. 

Apply, 17 Quaker Lane, Torybridge. 

Housekeeper! Gerry smiled to herself. 
Well, why not? It wasn’t that she could not 
do housework, only that she did not like to do 
it. And as she had not been fitted for any of 
the positions which she had thought she could 
hold, why not try this? Things often went by 
contraries. 

Torybridge was the next town to Oxford, 
about five miles distant, and twenty miles 
from the city. Gerry’s hand went to her 


48 "The Little Cockalorum 

pocket for car-fare to follow up her impulse, 
but like Mother Hubbard’s cupboard there 
was nothing there. She had forgotten about 
getting back. Disconsolately she wandered 
back to the place where David had left her 
that morning. Of course he would have gone. 
But out of a side street came lumbering a huge 
moving truck piled high with boxes and furni- 
ture. Giving a quick glance around to see that 
she was not observed, Gerry swung her lithe 
body upon the back and rode in glory to Tory- 
bridge on top of a very hot refrigerator. 

She found 17 Quaker Lane in a curious lit- 
tle side street that climbed right up the face 
of a steep hill and made the houses look as if 
they were tumbling down upon each other. It 
was in the middle of the block, a gray, dismal- 
looking house, with one flat door-step that 
jutted right out into the pavement. The win- 
dows were so low one had to stoop to look in 
if one wanted to peep. But one wouldn’t, the 
house did not promise anything worth peeping 
at. On the door was a tarnished old sign that 
said, “ Josiah A. Honeywell, M. D.” 

Gerry pulled the stiff old-fashioned bell and 
heard it pealing somewhere way back in the 


Gerry Meets a China-Man 49 

house. There was no answer, so she tried 
again. After the third trial, she heard shuf- 
fling steps, and the door was opened by a little 
old man, very benevolent looking, with a 
fringe of snow-white hair, and a pair of old- 
fashioned square-rimmed glasses. 

“ I am sorry you have been waiting so long. 
Please step in. My housekeeper is deaf, and 
to-day I advertised ” 

“ Yes,” answered Gerry breathlessly, “ I 
saw it. That is why I am here! ” 

“ Oh, then you know of someone compe- 
tent? ” 

“ Why, no, that is yes, I mean I am a house- 
keeper. I am applying for the position.” 

The old man looked at her slowly from head 
to toe, and a quiet little smile crept out from 
behind the thick glasses. 

“ My dear young lady, I had no idea. But 
of course I really need someone quite different, 
someone who will scrub, and cook, and wash 
dishes. In fact someone who will take the 
weight of the work from my faithful old 
Nancy. I can't dismiss her, it would break her 
heart, so you see I need someone to help her.” 

“ But I can do all of those things, scrub, and 


50 The Little Cockalorum 

sweep and wash dishes.” Gerry was so tired 
and discouraged that the tears just back of her 
eyes made her voice quiver. 

“Well now, well now! Let’s see. Let’s 
talk it over,” said the kindly old man. “ Come 
back to my study where we can sit down com- 
fortably.” 

Gerry followed his pudgy little figure 
through a long, dark hall toward a door at the 
end. When he opened it, she gasped at the 
fairy-land into which she stepped. One whole 
side of the room was of glass, in a bowed win- 
dow that looked out on a delightful old- 
fashioned garden. There were other long win- 
dows that opened out onto a narrow bricked 
terrace. But the thing which made Geny 
gasp were the shelves, glass shelves across the 
bowed window and laden with the most beau- 
tiful pieces of old colored glass that caught the 
light like so many imprisoned rainbows. 

“ How lovely! ” she exclaimed. 

The old man’s face lit up with pleasure. “ I 
see you appreciate my pets,” he said. “ This 
is my hobby, china and glass,” pointing to the 
cabinets and closets which practically lined the 
room. “ When a man who has been active as 


Gerry Meets a China-Man 51 

I have been retires he must have something to 
employ his mind. I always loved beautiful 
china, in fact I started to collect it while I was 
still practicing medicine. I had a large coun- 
try practice, and often in the little farmhouses 
I would find a bit of china or glass saved from 
colonial days that did not mean much to the 
folks who owned it now, but which would find 
a place in my collection. Often I would let 

them pay their bills in china ” and he 

broke into a delicious chuckling. 

Gerry could imagine that the kindly doc- 
tor’s visits were far from being paid by a bit 
of glass or china. 

“ But I forget. We are not talking over 
our little business of selecting a housekeeper. 
I get so absorbed in my hobby, living alone 
this way, it is hard to think of anything else.” 

“ I know,” put in Gerry eagerly, “ when 
you have a big idea in your mind it is hard to 
get away from it.” And then impulsively she 
told the interested old doctor the whole story 
of her boast and the necessity which had 
brought her to his door. He listened without 
interruption until she was done. 

“ My dear,” he said, “ I admire your cour- 


52 *The Little Cockalorum 

age. Indeed I do, but you will find out as you 
grow older that we waste a great deal of 
energy and enthusiasm in bumping our heads 
against stone walls of impossibility. When 
you bite off more than you can chew, to use 
an old-fashioned saying, it is so discouraging 
to future effort not to accomplish what you set 
out to do. Now if you were just a little more 
reasonable, and set yourself a lower limit to 
reach by the middle of September, maybe you 
could manage it.” 

Then Gerry told him about Mrs. Holliday’s 
offer. “ There, now, do you see? ” he pursued 
in his easy, consoling way. “ You would be 
foolish not to take her offer. You will be able 
to earn that allowance with an invalid girl, I 
can assure you. Now then, all you will need to 
earn is your tuition, and part of your first 
year’s board. The allowance will take care of 
books and expenses, and I am sure there will 
be some other work you can find at college to 
help you out.” 

Gerry agreed that four hundred dollars 
would be a more possible goal, and sufficient 
to begin with. 

“ Now, I’ll tell you what we shall do. I am 


Gerry Meets a China- Man 53 

not going to let you do my scrubbing, and 
washing and sweeping, though I believe you 
would go through with it. We can get an- 
other girl who has not had any other training 
to do that. You will come to me every morn- 
ing and superintend, see that Nancy has no 
worries, attend to my marketing, and so on. 
Then we can get all this into better order; my 
cataloguing is in a wretched state, my clippings 
and books need a systematic hand. I write 
articles, you know, on china occasionally, and 
maybe together we can gather material for an 
encyclopedic article I have been asked to do. 
For your services for half a day I shall give 
you fifteen dollars a week. What do you 
say? ” 

“ I say that you are absolutely the dearest, 
most understanding man I have ever met!” 
said Gerry impulsively, and it was all she could 
do to keep herself from throwing her arms 
about him. 

“ Of course it will not be enough for you, 
but you will have to fill your afternoons with 
some other work. Something will turn up, I 
know. Hello, there is luncheon! ” as the tinkle 
of a bell sounded from an adjoining room. “ I 


54 The Little Cockalorum 

should be delighted if you would stay and 
share it with me. I can’t promise what it will 
be. Nancy has some peculiar ideas.” 

It seemed a long, long time to Gerry since 
those three popovers of the morning, though 
she had not realized it until this minute. She 
accepted with alacrity. 

The dining-room was almost as interesting 
as the study they had just left. At the win- 
dows, again, there sparkled rows of dull pur- 
ple, sea-green, amber, and sky-blue glass, 
vases, plates, funny twisted bottles, and tall 
goblets. On the high walnut sideboard row 
upon row of precious china was spread. They 
ate their lunch of omelet, salad and fruit, from 
rare pieces of creamy glazed Wedgewood that 
the doctor told her was over a hundred and 
fifty years old. “ Nobody made teapots like 
Josiah Wedgewood,” he told her, pointing out 
the graceful lines of the piece he held in his 
hand, the well-balanced handle, the sliding lid, 
and the spout that poured its amber stream 
into her cup with such precision. Gerry had 
heard of Wedgewood but she resolved, then 
and there, to look him up in the encyclopedia 
in the library that very evening. 


Gerry Meets a China-Man 55 

“ Nancy tries to be careful but her sight is 
failing her. Every once in a while I hear a 
crash, and I know that one of my beauties is 
gone. I never ask her, but she usually brings 
me the pieces with a face as long as a fu- 
neral.” 

Gerry was sympathetic. She could imagine 
it would be almost like losing a friend for this 
doting china shepherd to lose one of his china 
sheep. Soon he was directing the conversa- 
tion to herself, and she told him all about her 
family, about the patient Elizabeth, “ who 
would really make you a much better house- 
keeper than I,” about Ted, and his passion 
for building, “ I am sure he is going to be an 
engineer or architect or something big when 
he grows up,” about her father and his beloved 
art, and the mother who was dead. 

“ I remember hearing about your mother’s 
father years ago. That was a fine old house 
he lived in in Oxford. I have often thought I 
would like to browse in it, for it must hold 
many treasures. His uncle, I think, was an 
old sea captain; am I right? ” 

“ Yes, that was Uncle Jerry, for whom I am 
really named. Aunt Geraldine was named for 


56 The Little Cockalorum 

him, and then I was named for her. Mother 
used to tell us stories of the cruises he made 
to foreign countries and how when he came 
back he always brought them such beautiful 
gifts” 

“ I don’t doubt it. Those old sea captains 
were the ones who brought back most of the 
Oriental treasures that one can still pick up 
around New England. I’ll tell you all about 
them some day when we are working here to- 
gether, about the little porcelain vases that 
held dried fruits, creams, and perfumes. I 
have a triangular shaped bit of Persian porce- 
lain that was used to clean out shoes with. It 
is very rare, and I don’t doubt but that it came 
over in the sea-locker of some old sailor who 
maybe gave it to his grandchildren to play 
with.” 

“ I remember something like that among 
Uncle Jerry’s things. And there was a little 
green stone object with a water-bottle and a 
cake of gold ink that we used to play with too. 
Mother told us they called it an ink-stone.” 

“ What has become of them all? ” asked Dr. 
Honeywell. 

“ Oh, I don’t know. We used to play with 


Gerry Meets a China-Man 57 

a lot of the old silks and fans and things when 
we were children, and the old bric-a-brac and 
silver is broken and lost. We have been so 
poor, you see, we could not afford to have them 
mended like other people would. Elizabeth 
says if someone in our family does not do 
something soon the house will fall down on us. 
You never can tell when you pick up a chair 
whether it will hold or not.” Gerry laughed 
at the picture of the Houston home she was 
painting for the doctor. 

Back of them a little china clock tinkled the 
hour of three. “ My goodness,” Gerry ex- 
claimed, “ I did not dream it was so late. I 
must hurry for I’ll have to walk home.” 

“ The trolley,” began the doctor, and his 
hand instinctively sought his trousers pocket, 
but stopped as Gerry gave her head the proud 
little toss he was soon to know so well. “ It's 
fine exercise, walking. We’d be a healthier 
people if more of us did it,” he ended courte- 
ously. “ Shall we begin work to-morrow? ” 

“ Yes, indeed. The sooner the better,” 
laughed Gerry. 

And as she trudged along the dusty river- 
road, lying hot and glaring in the afternoon 


58 The Little Cockalorum 

sun, she did not mind the five miles at all, for 
the result of her mission left a singing in her 
heart. 


CHAPTER IV 


ECHOES FROM THE PAST 

Gerry could hardly wait for the next morn- 
ing to come so she could begin her new work 
with Dr. Honeywell. Elizabeth did not have 
to call her more than once for the early break- 
fast which they shared with their father. Mr. 
Houston smiled to himself at Gerry’s business- 
like air, the neatness and precision with which 
she had put on her best tailored silk shirt, with 
the tiny pleated ruffles that she had ironed so 
carefully the night before, the creamy flannel 
skirt that always came so bravely out of the 
wash tub, her favorite crepe de chine tie, an 
odd greenish blue that she had bought the last 
time she was in New York, her low-heeled 
canvas oxfords, always so spick and span look- 
ing when they had received a coating of white 
polish. 

“ Well, we are all prepared for work, I see,” 
he remarked as Gerry put on her hat before 
the spotted mirror behind the porch door. She 
59 


60 The Little Cockalorum 

did it seriously with a slight frown between her 
eyes as if it were the most important matter in 
the world just then that the smart little sailor 
should set just right over the smooth brown 
hair. 

“ Don’t you think you should take an apron 
with you, Gerry, to keep that waist and skirt 
clean? ” asked Elizabeth. 

“ That’s not a half bad idea. I want to be- 
gin washing all that beautiful china and glass. 
It seemed terribly dusty yesterday.” 

“ Gerry,” pleaded Elizabeth, “ do be care- 
ful, won’t you? If you should ever drop any 
of it. You know how careless you are! ” 

Gerry opened her mouth as if to retort and 
then changed her mind. It was hard to be 
angry with Elizabeth, and it was true, she was 
careless. But she resolved then and there that 
her career at Dr. Honeywell’s should not come 
to an end through this weakness in her charac- 
ter. She would be so efficient, so methodical, 
that when September came and she left for col- 
lege, he would not know how to get along with- 
out her. 

Nancy answered her ring this time at the 
door of the funny little house on Tory Lane. 



“First of all, I Want to Clean House'"' 

































































Echoes From the Past 61 

Gerry was not so excited to-day, so she had 
time to notice, but not with approval, the 
musty odor that met her in the long, dark hall, 
the bowed shutters that made dismal a beauti- 
ful room crammed with old furniture so jum- 
bled and mixed up that nothing showed to ad- 
vantage. The clutter of garments on pegs in 
the hall annoyed her and later she resolved to 
bring down the carved lowboy she found in the 
unusued bedroom up-stairs, and put it where 
the light from the fan-shaped transom over 
the door would fall upon it, and where it would 
be the first thing to greet the visitor from the 
doorway. She found the doctor in a room 
down-stairs that had once been his consulting 
room, now a litter of books, instruments, busts 
of old physicians, etc. 

“ I feel revolutionary to-day,” she an- 
nounced as she tied Elizabeth's blue print 
apron around her. “ I am afraid, Doctor, 
you'll be sorry you asked me to superintend if 
I do everything here I want to do. First of 
all I want to clean house ” 

“ Good! The old house needs it, I know. I 
have let poor Nancy have her own way and 
buried myself in my hobby so that the disorder 


62 The Little Cockalorum 

and inconveniences have not annoyed me so 
much. Do whatever you want to, child, but be 
careful not to hurt Nancy’s feelings.” 

“ Oh, I could never do that,” Gerry assured 
him. “ But I would like to experiment with 
your furniture and see just what I could do 
with a lovely old house like this. I love to fix 
up rooms, you know, and you have so many 
beautiful things to play with.” 

“ Well, let me show you some of the beauti- 
ful things out in my china room. Maybe you 
can think up some better ways of showing 
them off and keeping them safe.” 

He led the way to the room at the back that 
Gerry had seen the day before. The morning 
sun was pouring in here now, its rays turning 
to bits of the rainbow as it filtered through the 
colored glass. 

“ I can see why you don’t bother with the 
rest of the house, when you have this lovely 
room to live in,” said Gerry. “ You must tell 
me all about your china and glass so I can love 
them the same as you do.” 

The doctor smiled at her enthusiasm. Pol- 
ishing his glasses he led her to a tall filing case 
in one corner. “ When you have straightened 


Echoes From the Past 63 

this out for me, you’ll know mostly all about 
my treasures except how I came to collect 
them. Get Nancy to tell you that some day. 
She loves to relate that story. She really is a 
romantic old soul in spite of her gruff ness.” 

“ It must be fascinating to gather these 
things,” Gerry offered politely, for the doctor 
had picked up some papers and seemed for the 
moment to have forgotten her. 

“ It is, as fascinating as Jason’s search for 
the golden fleece in some cases. When you 
make up your mind, for instance, that you 
simply must have a Queen Anne silver luster 
teapot to make your history of tea-drinking 
complete, you will not rest easy at night until 
you have bought, borrowed or stolen it. The 
tracing of some long sought treasure is excuse 
enough in itself for the collecting fever, but 
when you also think of the romance of taking 
in your own hands something that some great 
person has used daily, like this famous Martha 
Washington plate that I know the great lady 
did not trust to her servants to wash, you will 
begin to understand how truly fascinating the 
collector’s life can be. And then there are the 
stories connected with each piece, the history 


64 *The Little Cockalorum 

it has made, the insight it gives one into cus- 
toms and manners long forgotten.” 

Gerry leaned forward in her chair, her in- 
terest caught by the thought of the romance 
back of each piece of the doctor’s collection. 

“ Take this beautiful cracked punch-bowl, 
for instance. I bought it at a sale for almost 
a song because it was so nearly broken; the 
dealer was afraid it would not last until I got 
it home. It didn’t, but I have cemented the 
two halves very neatly with a mending paste I 
have worked on for years. This bowl came 
from an old Philadelphia family, they had 
many punch-bowls in Philadelphia in colonial 
days, and was supposed to have been used at 
a gay dinner after Washington’s inaugura- 
tion. See, the baby stars and stripes are on 
it! Think of the healths that were drunk from 
that! Punch, by the way, was not English as 
you would suppose; it came from the Indian 
word 4 pauch ’ meaning five, because the In- 
dian drink that was brought here by our trad- 
ers consisted of five ingredients, arrack, tea, 
sugar, water, and lemon-juice.” The doctor 
stopped for breath. 

44 Why, I could learn a history lesson from 


Echoes From the Past 65 

every piece of china you have, couldn’t I? ” ex- 
claimed Gerry. 

“ Exactly. And more than that, I could 
tell you the most pathetic little love story about 
that pair of posy jars over there in the cup- 
board.” 

“Posy jars!” Gerry followed the doctor 
across the room where a beautifully carved 
mahogany cupboard, with its tiers of scalloped 
shelves, all painted white inside, was laden with 
more china and curios. Here he picked up 
one of a pair of three-legged flower holders 
with pierced tops for the flower stems, and 
scarlet blue and gold dragons ornamenting the 
sides. 

“ These belonged to the Gramby girls, 
twins, and when I first knew them I should 
judge they were over fifty years old. You see 
they lived in the same old house for years and 
the neighbors had never gotten out of the way 
of calling them girls, poor dears! Well, they 
had a beau; nice sort of young fellow he 
must have been when he started courting 
them.” 

“ Both of them together? ” Gerry inter- 
rupted, 


66 T*he Little Cockalorum 

“ Yes, that is what everybody thought. He 
kept calling for years and years, and no one 
could decide whether he could not make up his 
mind which one to marry, or whether because 
they were so devoted to each other that neither 
one would forsake the other to marry him. At 
any rate, he made a weekly call upon them as 
regularly as clockwork. On the high man- 
tel in their parlor stood these posy jars handed 
down to them with the other lovely old things 
in the house. Now Mr. — I declare I cannot 
remember the man’s name, though it really 
doesn’t matter — Mr. Beau we’ll call him, 
would come along every evening with two bou- 
quets in his hands for the sisters. They were 
always just exactly alike and they always 
meant something. In those days young people 
liked to think that flowers spoke a lan- 
guage ” 

“ I believe some of us do yet,” said Gerry 
softly. 

“ Maybe so, maybe so. But these old-time 
lovers interpreted the names of flowers into 
messages of love. The red, red rose meant 
most of all. Rosemary was for remembrance, 
and pansies for thoughts ” 


6 7 


Echoes From the Past 

“ Why, that’s in 4 Hamlet,’ isn’t it? ” 

Dr. Honeywell gave her a keen look. 
44 You’re right, Miss Geraldine, but not many 
young folks these days remember things like 
that.” 

44 Oh, but I always loved poor Ophelia. But 
do please go on about the posy vases, it is so 
thrilling.” 

44 Well, this Mr. Beau was very clever at 
making up messages from his bouquets of 
flowers, and I can imagine that the Gramby 
girls waited eagerly for his coming each week 
to see what he might have thought up for them. 
This continued for years, until one night when 
he came he seemed very much perturbed, so 
the story goes, and when he handed Miss Cyn- 
thia her bouquet his hand shook so he could 
hardly hold it. It seems that in the very cen- 
ter of Cynthia’s bouquet was buried a red, red 
rose. Amelia’s bouquet did not have it. Cyn- 
thia tried at first to hide it from her sister while 
they were arranging their flowers in the pair of 
posy vases, and would have slipped her red 
rosebud into her silk apron pocket, but Amelia 
looked up too soon. Poor dears! It must 
have been very hard for them. Cynthia sent 


68 The Little Cockalorum 

her lover away. He soon married a farmer’s 
daughter. But she moped and faded just like 
the red rose pressed now between the pages of 
her testament. I am convinced that folks 
really died in those times of a broken heart. 
They did not have so many things as we have 
now, to divert them from their sorrows. Cyn- 
thia died shortly after I moved here and 
Amelia followed her very soon from sheer lone- 
someness, I am sure. The house and furnish- 
ings were sold by some distant cousins. They 
asked me to send my bill when the estate was 
being settled up. It was considerable, for I 
had attended Amelia through her long tedious 
illness, but I wrote across my bill-head simply 
this: 

“ ‘ For professional services rendered, I will 
take in payment the two china posy vases on 
the parlor mantel-shelf.’ They paid my price 
willingly, and I dare say called me a fool. I 
could not bear to think of those vases going 
into unappreciative hands, besides they are 
rare and beautiful specimens of their kind.” 

“ What a sad little story,” murmured 
Gerry, passing her hands reverently over the 
surface of the posy vase she was holding in her 


Echoes F?'om the Past 69 

hand. “ I don’t wonder you like to collect 
these things when each of them has a tale like 
that back of it.” 

“ All the stories are not so beautiful, how- 
ever. You are younger than I am, my dear; if 
you will mount that set of steps you’ll find a 
queer little cloudy blue bottle on the set of 
shelves yonder.” 

Gerry hastened to do his bidding. On the 
top of a beautiful mahogany highboy was a set 
of what she afterward learned to call a crown 
of china steps, each step a bit smaller than the 
lower oile to show off all the pieces of rare 
china that were crowded upon them. She 
found the little blue bottle and laid it in the 
doctor’s hand. 

“ This was given me by a fellow collector, a 
man of whom I am very fond. He is much 
younger than I am, a gentleman through and 
through, but his hobby runs to rarer things 
even than old china. He has traveled the 
globe time and time again and had many hair- 
breadth escapes. This is a tear bottle, and its 
chief interest for me, aside from its beautiful 
coloring, is the story of how it was found. The 
collector was traveling with a caravan across 


The Little Cockalorum 


70 

the desert to Beni Mora when his party was 
waylaid by a tribe of bandits, ruthless robbers 
who frequent the roads of desert travel and 
live upon the spoils. The travelers put up a 
stiff fight, however, and managed to rout the 
thieves, wounding one fellow and leaving him 
for dead in the sands. But my friend, whom 
I have described as a very fine fellow, worried 
so about the wounded man left to die in the 
lonely desert that he persuaded some of the 
natives in the party to go back with him. They 
did. They found the man almost dead and 
stayed with him until he died. My friend’s re- 
ward was a bag of loot which the dying man 
took from around his neck. In it, besides some 
other interesting trifles, was this tear bottle, 
and far, far more valuable was a marvelous 
piece of cloudy pink jade. This had been 
carved to resemble a lovely rounded plum with 
stem and leaves. It is almost life-size but just 
a little flatter than a real plum would have 
been. It had evidently been fashioned as an 
ornament for some fair eastern lady’s neck and 
had come into the robber’s possession through 
dear knows how many hands. 

" My friend says it was worth that whole 


Echoes From the Past 71 

trip abroad. He has been asked time and 
again to lend it to a museum or collection but 
he is superstitious about it and refuses to part 
with it. He says he is afraid if it once leaves 
his hands his luck goes with it.” 

“ How thrilling! I do wish sometime that 
I could see it.” Gerry was clasping and un- 
clasping her hands in her excitement. It was 
like walking right into the pages of an excit- 
ing story to be given these snatches of the tales 
that had brought Dr. Honeywell’s treasures 
into his possession. 

“ Maybe sometime you will. But I’ll spoil 
you if I continue telling you stories like this 
all day. It isn’t often I have such an appre- 
ciative listener. Nancy has no imagination to 
grasp the beauties of my collection. To her 
this is a cup and saucer and those lovely things: 
at the window a lot of old empty bottles, that 
she would like to throw in the trash-barrel 
when house-cleaning time comes around.” 

“ I am going to wash and shine them all up 
for you just as soon as we get the rest of the 
things straightened out,” Gerry promised, roll- 
ing up her sleeves as though all ready to begin. 
“ But I am dying to know what is in that dirty 


72 


The Little Cockalorum 


old barrel in the corner, Doctor. It spoils the 
whole room/’ 

“ That is full of some things I picked up the 
last time I was down to New York, but I 
haven’t a bit of shelf room left for them. 
Maybe you can think of some way to dispose 
of them. I’ll unpack them to-morrow.” 

“ If you could only find another cupboard 
to put in the opposite corner and balance your 
room it would be lovely. We could make 
space for that old ugly filing case in the li- 
brary and ” 

“ By George, I almost forgot, there’s to be 
an auction out at the Layton farm to-morrow. 
Since Patience Layton died, old John has 
lived alone there, but his daughter is making 
him sell out and move to the city with her. 
Now there ought to be a cupboard like that 
out there because I got this one from John 
Layton’s brother and I know there were a pair 
of them in the father’s old house once upon a 
time. We’ll drive out there to-morrow after- 
noon. You’ll see what a country auction like 
this means. They will sell everything from a 
match box to a four-poster. We’ll take 
Fancy ” 


Echoes From the Past 73 

“ Fancy! Who on earth is Fancy?” 
Gerry had never heard such a name. 

“Fancy is my old mare. I don’t use her 
much any more since I have stopped practic- 
ing, but a little exercise does her good once in 
a while. She has been a faithful old horse. 
I’ll miss her when she goes. Fancy and I have 
been through hard times together but I like to 
remember the cheeky summer days we rambled 
along the summer roads before the autos came. 
At noon we would stop under a large tree and 
I’d take out Fancy’s feed-bag from under the 
seat, and Nancy’s crullers or tarts from my 
pocket and we’d forget the dusty old road and 
the hot sun for a while.” 

Dr. Honeywell leaned his head back in his 
worn old leather chair and shut his eyes. 
Gerry imagined what it meant for him to have 
to give up his work. Then an idea popped into 
her head, and making an excuse she left the 
sunny china room and went to find Nancy in 
the kitchen. 


CHAPTER V 


SOLD TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER 

“ Nancy, Dr. Honeywell said that some day 
you would tell me how he started to collect 
china. Do tell me now while we finish the 
lunch.” 

Gerry and Nancy were in the old low-ceil- 
inged kitchen with the big fireplace across one 
end, large enough to walk into, but barred now 
for the summer months with huge wooden 
doors. They were packing the lunch that 
Gerry had asked Nancy to prepare the day 
before. It had struck her that it would please 
the doctor to start early for the auction and to 
linger under a wayside tree for their noonday 
bite. He had welcomed the idea heartily. “ It 
will be just like old times,” he told Gerry, 
“ only better even, for I will have a nice young 
person to share the buggy seat and my memo- 
ries with me.” 

So Gerry had persuaded Nancy to make 
74 


Sold to the Highest Bidder 75 

some of the famous crullers, bake a ham, and 
some of her Parker House rolls, and now she 
was folding them neatly in wax paper for the 
ride, while Dr. Honeywell went to the livery 
stable to get F ancy and the old hooded buggy 
that had so often traveled the country roads 
in all kinds of weather. 

Nancy’s eyes flashed when Geny put her 
request for the story, but she did not answer 
with anything but a grunt. Gerry, beginning 
to know this queer Nancy, felt she wanted to 
be coaxed, so she used all her powers of 
cajolery. 

“ Dunno why the doc said I liked to tell that 
fool story of his. I always blamed Miss 
Fanny for it and he doesn’t, so we never agree 
on it. But you can have it the way I see it if 
you must. You know the doctor was a hand- 
some young fellow when he came home from 
the university and hung out his shingle. His 
ma was living then, and this old house was 
full of company morning, noon, and night. I 
was up-stairs girl then. Doc used to drive the 
handsomest pair of black horses about the 
country and every girl was crazy about him. 
There was one girl, Miss Fanny Prescott, that 


76 The Little Cockalorum 

he seemed pretty crazy about too. She lived 
in Boston and came here for the summers ; she 
was mighty pretty, but not much to her. She 
led the doctor a pretty chase until at last folks 
thought she would be the next Mrs. Honey- 
well and come here to live. They used to go 
horseback riding together and the doctor 
would lend her one of his black horses. One 
was much gentler than the other. But one 
morning she insisted, in that high way of hers, 
of trying the friskier one, and the doctor gave 
in to her. That horse wasn’t used to being 
rode by a lady and he simply tore away with 
her before the doctor could mount the other 
one. She wasn’t hurt, for some bridge build- 
ers saw her coming down the road and caught 
the horse before he could throw her, but the 
doctor was. His horse got excited seeing the 
other one bolt and tore off just as the doctor 
had one foot in the stirrup. It threw him 
and wrenched his one knee badly. He was laid 
up for weeks. They told him he was going to 
be lame for life. Miss Fanny went straight 
back to Boston and never came near him at all. 
The doctor says she was ashamed of herself 
and couldn’t face him. Maybe she was, but I 


Sold to the Highest Bidder 77 

think she didn’t want to many a lame man 
who couldn’t dance or ride with her any 
more.” 

“How could she be so cruel!” exclaimed 
Gerry. “ But what has that to do with the 
china collecting? ” 

“ Well, you see the doctor got mightily tired 
lying there in bed that summer with nothing to 
do, and one day a patient of his sent some fruit 
to him in an old bowl he had never seen before. 
It was a — blessed if I know what he calls it, 
but anyway you can see it in there in the cup- 
board. Seems there was only one or two like 
it in the world, so a friend up in Boston told 
him, and he bought it from the woman who 
sent him the fruit and it started him reading 
about old china and going all over the country 
after it when he got better.” 

“ But was he lame after all? I have never 
noticed him limp.” 

“ No, it soon wore off. Once in a while now 
when a damp spell comes along it gets a bit 
stiff, that’s all. Miss Fanny tried to win him 
back the next summer she came here for her 
vacation, but it was too late. He had the china 
fever by that time, and he’s never given it up. 


78 The hit tie Cockalorum 

He says a fine piece of china is almost as beau- 
tiful as a pretty woman, and much more to be 
depended upon, though I dunno.” 

Nancy’s story done, she shut up like the 
proverbial clam. They packed the rest of the 
lunch in silence. Gerry could not understand 
this queer woman, but she resolved that before 
she left Dr. Honeywell’s she would thaw the 
ice of Nancy’s reserve. 

Fancy had been a fine horse in her day, 
Gerry realized as she stepped into the creak- 
ing old buggy with the worn leather seat into 
which she sank much farther than she had bar- 
gained for. The doctor picked up his reins, 
clucked gently to Fancy, and they were off 
into the country. It was a beautiful day, not 
too warm, but deliciously drowsy. They let 
Fancy take her own gait which was not very 
fast, and chatted as they drove between sunny 
meadows, past cool, trickling little streams, 
through a stretch of woods. Here they 
stopped for the lunch. Fancy’s meal bag was 
adjusted and everybody was happy. 

“ That auction’s at two,” the doctor said 
suddenly, pulling out his large gold watch. 
“ We’ll have to make this old lady step along. 


Sold to the Highest Bidder 79 

I don’t want anyone else to get that cupboard 
away from me.” 

They were a little late when they reached 
the Layton farm. Already rows of buggies 
were hitched to the fence posts and hitching 
posts, muddy and dusty old Fords were 
parked in rows, several machines full of tour- 
ists and visitors from the hotel up the river 
proved that the auction had been well adver- 
tised. 

Most of the goods that could be moved had 
been taken out of the house and stood in the 
dooryard where the auctioneer, a tall, untidy 
man with a very red face, could point to them 
as he put them up for sale. Sure enough, there 
was the cupboard, standing against a pile of 
old bedding, and looking as if it missed its 
corner very much. Gerry and the doctor 
drove quite near the group around the auc- 
tioneer and did not have to leave the car- 
riage. 

The man was asking for a bid on an old 
vivid green plush photograph album. It was 
slow in coming, but finally a tremulous voice 
from the crowd offered twenty-five cents. 

“ What, only twenty-five cents for this gor- 


80 The Liit tie Cockalorum 

geous, this elegant album, the treasure house 
of golden memories, the entertainer of beaux, 
the solace of old age? Come, come, what am 
I bid? Make it something worth while! 
Who’ll bid a dollar? Who’ll bid a dollar, a 
dollar?” 

“Doesn’t he think he’s funny!” whispered 
Gerry to the doctor. The doctor nodded. 
“ Folks expect it of him. A great many come 
for the sport of hearing him, more than to 
buy.” 

The album went for seventy-five cents to 
one of the party in the red car who took it as 
a huge joke and went into peals of laughter 
as they turned the pages. Gerry wondered 
who it was that really had wanted it for the 
original bid of a quarter. Too bad the woman 
could not have had it. These others were only 
passing an idle hour with it. 

Then came a succession of homely household 
things, cooking utensils, portraits, huge gilt- 
framed pictures set with mother-of-pearl. 
They were bid in by the owners of the buggies 
tied about and dragged away to be taken home 
to their kitchens and parlors. 

w What am I offered for this very fine, solid 


Sold to the Highest Bidder 81 

mahogany table? Walk up and examine it, 
ladies and gents ; it’s in A 1 condition, though 
as old as they make ’em. You can still see the 
rings where the ladies stood their teacups dur- 
ing the Boston Tea Party. Come on, speak 
up.” 

Somebody had lifted upon his platform a 
beautiful old table, of the tilt-top kind, with 
three graceful legs upon a beautifully carved 
pedestal. The top of the table was rimmed 
and fluted around the edge. 

“A pie-crust table,” whispered the doctor to 
Gerry. “ You can see the edge is just like 
the scalloped edge of a pie. These are very 
valuable when in good condition, but I know 
this one. It is badly chipped on the edge, and 
one leg has been broken off, and a poorly 
carved one put in its place.” 

Gerry was surprised to hear the spirited bid- 
ding for this dusty old table. The people in 
the automobiles seemed to want it badly. But 
for every bid from them, a high-pitched voice 
in the crowd went just a little higher. Gerry 
craned her neck to see who it was who seemed 
to want it just a little more badly than the city 
folks, but she could not find the owner of the 


82 "The Little Cockalorum 

voice. It finally went for forty dollars to the 
mysterious bidder. 

Other things of a similar nature fell to the 
owner of the mysterious voice, a banjo-clock, a 
pair of brass candlesticks, a mahogany-framed 
mirror from which the glass had been broken, 
and a queer old cradle. 

“A dealer, as sure as you live!” said the 
doctor. “ She’ll give me a race for my cup- 
board if I don’t look out. Maybe I had bet- 
ter get someone else to start the bidding for 
me. 

“I’ll do it,” volunteered Gerry; “you can 
tell me what to bid.” 

“ Well, don’t go over twenty, although 
that’s too much for a country sale.” 

They sat silent while curtains and bedding 
were sold off. 

Then, “ Here’s a fine old corner china closet, 
folks. All it needs is a little paint. Fine old 
piece; what am I bid? ” 

Gerry looked at the doctor. “ Three dol- 
lars,” he motioned with his lips. 

Gerry slid out of the buggy and approached 
the edge of the crowd. 

“ Three dollars,” she called, and was fright- 


Sold to the Highest Bidder 83 

ened at the sound of her voice, it seemed so 
loud. 

“ Wha-at? ” shrilled the auctioneer. 
“ Three measly greenbacks for this magnifi- 
cent piece of woodwork. You’re crazy, who- 
ever you are. Come on, somebody who knows 
a good thing when he sees it, give me a sensible 
bid.” 

“ Four dollars ! ” came the mysterious voice. 

“ Five ! ” cried someone else on the edge of 
the crowd. 

“ Six ! ” called Gerry, her heart pound- 
ing. 

“ That’s a little, just a little more like it,” 
from the auctioneer. 

“ Seven! ” bid the voice. 

“ Seven-fifty ! ” from someone in an auto 
who wanted to see the bidding was exciting. 

“Eight!” from Gerry. 

“ Ten ! ” the voice. 

“ Twelve! ” Gerry’s face was beginning to 
get the two telltale marks of red in each cheek 
that showed her determination was rising. 

“ Who’ll give more than twelve? ” asked the 
auctioneer, now very well pleased with the 
trend of the price. “ What am I bid? What 


84 The Little Cockalorum 

am I bid? You are not going to let this hand- 
some cupboard get away from you, madam, 
for another dollar or so. Come on now ! ” 

“ Thirteen! ” offered the voice. 

“ Fifteen! ” shot out Gerry. She was going 
to get that cupboard for the doctor if she had 
to bid all night. 

“ That’s better!” The auctioneer was glow- 
ing. “ That’s more like it. Who will give me 
more than fifteen? Isn’t there anyone who 
wants this beautiful piece of furniture badly 
enough to give me twenty dollars for it? ” Si- 
lence. “ Going then at fifteen. Going then 
at fifteen.” 

“ Twenty! ” The voice sounded as if that 
would end the whole thing. 

Gerry did not know what to do. She had 
worked into the crowd in her excitement and 
now as she turned to look at the doctor she 
found herself shut off from him. The auc- 
tioneer’s hammer had pounded once, “ Going 
at twenty,” she heard him say the second time, 
then: 

“Twenty-two!” she called, so excited she 
was afraid she would not be able to make her- 
self heard. 


Sold to the Highest Bidder 85 

There was no other bid. The cupboard 
went to Gerry at twenty-two. She edged her 
way back to the buggy. 

“Was that all right? ” she asked the doctor 
timidly, as she climbed into the seat. “ I just 
couldn’t bear to let that woman with the voice 
have it, she seemed so greedy.” 

“ That’s perfectly all right. If a dealer bid 
twenty for it it was still a bargain at twenty- 
two.” 

China was now put up for sale. The doctor 
sat through some of it unmoved until a large, 
creamy glazed bowl, latticed like basket-work, 
was held high by the auctioneer. “ That looks 
like a piece of genuine salt glaze,” he ex- 
claimed, handing the reins to Gerry. “ I 
didn’t remember J ohn Layton had any of that, 
and I knew his china pretty well. I’m going 
to examine it.” 

Gerry expected to hear the mysterious voice 
raised in bidding for such a treasure but it was 
silent, and she remembered it had been silent 
for some time. Probably this dealer was not 
interested in china, or had spent all her money 
and had gone home. The bowl went to some- 
one in the red car for twenty dollars after the 


86 The Tittle Cockalorum 

auctioneer had sung its praises as something 
that had come over in the Mayflower. 

“ Mayflower, nothing,” muttered the doctor, 
as he joined Gerry in the buggy. “ Salt- 
glazed ware is a hundred years older than the 
Mayflower, but this isn’t even genuine. It’s 
a fake. Somebody is running a lot of bogus 
antiques into this sale. There’s a lot of china 
I never saw on Layton’s shelves lying up there 
on the lawn, but I fixed this dealer. I got 
hold of John himself and we fixed up a couple 
of baskets full of tricks, all right. We’ll 
give this trickster a dose of her own medi- 
cine.” 

Then he told Gerry how he had made up 
several lots of the china to be sold by the 
basket, and in each one of the cheap lots of 
imitation that someone had brought to the auc- 
tion he had put one of John’s fine old bits that 
any dealer would be glad to have. “Now then 
you can start the bidding up pretty high, lead 
the dealer on, but not too far. She’ll have to 
buy back her own junk if she wants the really 
valuable piece in the basket.” 

Gerry did as she was told. The first basket 
she started at five dollars and carried the bid 


Sold to the Highest Bidder 87 

along with the mysterious voice, that seemed 
suddenly to have come to life again, until it 
went to the voice at twelve. She did the 
same with the second and the third. At the 
fourth something told her to withdraw. 
“ I was afraid to bid this time,” she told 
the doctor. “ I was afraid she would be sus- 
picious.” 

“ Right. The auctions are all a matter of 
psychology, seeing into the other fellow’s 
mind. Well, we’ll let the greedy lady with the 
voice take the fourth basket if she wants it. I 
wonder how many ladies here she has fooled 
to-day? ” 

“ Are all the dealers like that? ” Gerry asked 
as they turned Fancy’s nose out of the yard 
toward home. 

“ A good many of them are in it for the 
money, but not the real collector. When they 
are beyond his purse he does not begrudge 
them to someone else who loves them too.” 

“ It’s all so fascinating! ” sighed Gerry sink- 
ing back comfortably on the old leather seat. 
“ I never dreamed until I met you, Doctor, 
that people would pay real money for such old 
things.” 


88 


The Little Cockalorum 


“ It isn’t the things themselves so much, my 
dear, as the history they have written and the 
friends they have known.” 


CHAPTER VI 


A NEW NEIGHBOR 

Three weeks passed, three golden summer 
weeks, when all the younger crowd of Oxford 
were picnicking, and playing tennis and gener- 
ally enjoying the vacation. But Gerry, who 
would naturally have been with them, holding 
the alto in the old school songs, suggesting new 
games for afternoons in the woods, holding the 
doubles championship for the girls against the 
boys on the high school courts, was missing it 
all and apparently not worrying about it. She 
threw her whole energy into her new work as 
she did into everything she undertook, bring- 
ing home many of the old volumes on china 
and glassware to read in the evenings under 
the red glass shade of the living-room lamp. 

While Dr. Honeywell did not ask more than 
half the day of her, Gerry in her enthusiasm 
gave much more of her time to the straighten- 
ing out of his household and literary affairs. 
At first old Nancy held off, jealous as any old 
89 


go The Little Cockalorum 

servant would be at having a “ young snip * 
like Gerry taking the household reins from the 
hands that had held them for so many years. 
Then she developed a hurt, humbled attitude. 

“ It’s the funniest thing you ever saw,” 
Gerry told her home-folks one night after a 
trying day at the doctor’s. “ I could laugh 
except that she makes me so cross and sorry at 
the same time.” 

Then getting up from the supper table, 
Gerry began to imitate the deposed Nancy, in 
the same way that she had brought home to 
them for years pictures of her Aunt Geral- 
dine, the new English teacher, the gardener at 
the Sewells’, funny, kindly imitations that the 
subjects themselves would have been forced to 
laugh at if they had the least scrap of humor. 
Now she held her head to one side, folding her 
hands over her stomach and began in a high, 
quavering whine: “ ‘ I been cleanin’ out that 
kitchen cupboard, Miss Gerleen, and I’m sure 
I done the best a body could do with only one 
pair o’ hands, but the dishes won’t all go in 
the way you said.’ And then ” — Gerry’s 
voice was her own again, “ when I told her to 
let it wait for Hattie, the girl who comes to 


A New Neighbor 91 

clean, she shook her head as if I were hopeless 
and went and took every single dish out again 
and set them in the middle of the floor so she 
would have to step over them all day.” 

Ted set up an appreciative yell at this pic- 
ture, Mr. Houston smiled indulgently, but 
Elizabeth’s face was sober. Gerry suspected 
that she sympathized secretly with Nancy. 

44 Never mind, Gerry,” said Ted, 44 you’ve 
got a cinch. How much have you saved to- 
ward college? ” 

44 I’m not telling. I’m afraid the rumor 
might get around that we were rich and some- 
one would come in and rob us,” said Gerry. 

But the next afternoon, which was Saturday 
and 44 pay-day ” she counted out forty dollars 
in bills which she folded carefully and laid 
away in the 44 secret ” jewel drawer of the old 
walnut bureau. She sighed, for forty dollars 
seemed so little toward the three hundred and 
the summer was going, going. Then she went 
down-stairs to place a borrowed dollar in 
Elizabeth’s jelly glass that held the house 
money on the kitchen shelf. Someone in the 
next yard was calling over the white paling 
fence: 


92 The Little Cockalorum 

“ Lizbeth! Lizbeth Houston! ” 

Gerry ran out on the back porch. It was 
Mrs. Wilcox, better known as Aunt Letty, 
their best neighbor, the kindly woman who had 
literally raised them after their mother had 
died, who had taught Elizabeth the secrets of 
housekeeping, who even now that they were 
older demanded a report from the faithful 
Elizabeth almost daily. When she saw 
Gerry’s face through the honeysuckle vine she 
cried out: 

“ Oh, it’s you, Gerry. I wanted the turk’s 
head Elizabeth borrowed yesterday.” 

“ Turk’s head, Aunt Letty? Have you and 
Elizabeth been turning barbarians?” 

Aunt Letty chuckled appreciatively. “ Go 
on, you crazy girl, see if it isn’t in the big yel- 
low bowl in the cupboard ! ” 

Gerry found the large cake tin and slipping 
through the gap in the fence, charitably cov- 
ered with morning-glory vines, tucked her arm 
in the crook of Aunt Letty’s pudgy one. 

“ What’s it going to be, Aunt Letty, angel 
food? And who’s coming for tea to-morrow? ” 
“No one’s cornin’ I know of except the new 
boarder.” 


A New Neighbor 93 

“New boarder! Aunt Letty, you’re not 
taking boarders? ” 

“ Lands, child, I thought you knew all about 
it. Don’t look so shocked. She’s a right pleas- 
ant young lady, though somehow or other she’s 
got a sad look back of her smile. That’s what 
made me say yes when she come walkin’ into 
my parlor the other day and said she had 
picked my house out of all Oxford because it 
looked so clean, and quiet and homey. There, 
could I turn her away after that? ” 

“ But who is she, Aunt Letty? Has she any 
references? ” 

“ I never thought of references,” said Aunt 
Letty, sinking into her turkey-red rocker on 
her shady side porch. “ Besides I couldn’t 
hurt her feelin’s. When you get as old as I 
am, dearie, you can read all the references you 
want in a body’s face.” 

Gerry sucking honey from a large, luscious 
honeysuckle blossom nodded approval. You 
couldn’t fool Aunt Letty very long, she knew 
from sad experience. Aunt Letty’s good na- 
ture never evaporated, but her kind eyes al- 
ways saw the truth. 

“ What’s the lady’s name? ” she asked. 


94 The Little Cockalorum 

“ Ruth Merrill. She’s somewheres between 
twenty-seven and thirty, I should say,” added 
Aunt Letty. 

“ Ruth Merrill,” repeated Gerry, closing 
her eyes, and leaning back against the porch 
post. “ That’s a lovely name. She’s sort of 
sweet and gentle, but with a will of her own, 
medium height, light brown hair, eyes to 
match, ivory skin, with probably a tragic love 
affair somewhere in the past.” 

“ Gerry Houston, you little monkey, you 
knew her all the time ! ” cried Aunt Letty. 

“ Indeed, I didn’t, Aunt Letty. I just pic- 
tured her from her name. Was I right? ” 

“ Pretty nearly, all but the love affair. I 
don’t know anything about that. She just told 
me she wanted a quiet, cool room for the sum- 
mer where she could write in the morn- 
ings ” 

“ Write? Oh, Aunt Letty, how wonderful! 
She’s an author, of course! ” 

“ She didn’t say. I thought she meant 
write letters, though maybe you’re right. She 
didn’t look like an author, she was dressed real 
neat ” 

With a whoop of delight, Gerry flopped into 


A New Neighbor 95 

Aunt Letty’s capacious lap. “ You old dar- 
ling. Authors aren’t all frumps. I met a few 
at Aunt Geraldine’s and they’re just like us, 
only brighter maybe. Let’s see where you are 
going to put the Writer Lady! ” 

“ I was just finished cleanin’ her room when 
I called,” explained Aunt Letty, leading the 
way up the narrow, boxed-in stairs. Then she 
threw open the door to a large, low-ceilinged 
room with windows on the three sides com- 
manding views of the river, and the Houston 
house, and the green nodding branches of a 
chummy old apple-tree to the right. But the 
room was sparsely furnished; besides the white 
iron bed and oak bureau, a straight chair and 
small wash-stand with a garish china set upon 
it, the room was bare. Gerry stood at the door 
for a second in silence. Her quick imagination 
was telling her how the Writer Lady would 
feel in the stiff, unhomey room that lay before 
her. She turned to Aunt Letty Wilcox, 
breathing hard behind her in the narrow hall. 

“ Aunt Letty, this is the most beautiful 
room in the house, but what did you do with 
your lovely old mahogany furniture? ” 

Aunt Letty looked apologetic. “ I just 


96 T'he Little Cockalorum 

switched the furniture from her room to mine. 
I thought the iron bed and the bureau looked 
more up-to-date for a city lady like her. I 
got them before Mister died, you know.” 

Gerry thought quickly. She did not want 
to hurt Aunt Letty’s feelings, but somehow 
she knew just how the spirits of the Writer 
Lady with the pretty, artistic, soft name would 
sink at the cheap-looking room. She felt as if 
she had known Miss Ruth Merrill all her 
life. 

“ Listen, Aunt Letty, do you know what I 
think? I think that this Miss Ruth Merrill is 
so tired of iron beds and oak bureaus that she 
would just love to crawl into your old four- 
poster at nights, and look at herself in your 
mahogany bureau. Let’s change them back. 
You sit down and watch me do it; it won’t take 
a jiffy!” 

Aunt Letty, whose hundred and eighty 
pounds were pretty well “ tuckered out ” by 
her morning’s work, sat and watched the resto- 
ration which took more than a jiffy. Even the 
rugs were changed, the old braided rugs being 
brought back, the oval mirror that hung for 
want of a better place in the hall being brought 


A New Neighbor 97 

in “ to lighten up a dark corner ” as Gerry ex- 
plained. 

“ I learned that at Aunt Geraldine’s. I 
never saw anyone with so many mirrors. But 
she told me the decorator said her apartment 
would be as dark as hades if it weren’t for the 
reflected light.” 

“ How your Aunt Geraldine can live in the 
same house with hundreds of other folks with 
all her money, I can’t see,” said Aunt Letty 
rocking hack and forth in the splint-bottom 
rocker that had been brought back with the 
other things. “ I thought mebbe now that you 
were finished school she might want to adopt 
you or something. She seems right fond of 
you.” 

“ I guess Aunt Geraldine won’t do any 
adopting or anything else, since I turned her 
down so cold about college,” laughed Gerry. 
Then her face sobered. “ Poor Aunt Geral- 
dine! Sometimes I think she’s awfully lone- 
some, although she seems to be having such 
perfectly fine times.” 

“ Shouldn’t wonder! She thought a heap of 
your mother, Gerry. I remember, it must be 
over fifteen years ago, just before Elizabeth 


T'he Little Cockalorum 


98 

was born, she came down here to see your 
mother. I can see her yet, driving up from 
the station in the hack, her ostrich plumes wav- 
ing out the back, stepping out gingerly in the 
road, looking all around as if she weren’t sure 
of the house. Then your mother ran out and 
threw her arms about her, and pulled her up 
the walk, and around to the side yard where 
your father was painting you playing in the 
sunshine. You were a cute baby, Gerry. 
Your Aunt Geraldine didn’t even sit down. 
I could see from this window here. What she 
came all the way from the city for I don’t know 
because your mother never talked about her to 
me, but I saw her take one look at your fa- 
ther’s picture, toss her head and turn her back 
on it, pick you up and give you a little peck on 
the cheek, and was off again. I always sus- 
pected she wanted to adopt you then and there, 
thinking your folks were too poor to keep 
you.” 

A fat tear dropped from Gerry’s eyes to the 
footstool she was dusting. “ I guess we al- 
ways were pretty poor,” she said when Aunt 
Letty stopped. “ It must have worried 
Mother.” 


A New Neighbor 99 

“ She never said much. She wasn’t that 
kind. But once when things were pretty bad, 
just after Ted was born, she burst out to me 
one day. ‘Aunt Letty,’ she said, ‘ sometimes I 
think I can hardly stand it. I couldn’t if John 
were lazy or cruel to me. But he is the best, 
the kindest, the dearest husband in the world. 
And he is a great artist. Some day people 
will know it. If we can only wait until 
then!”’ 

“ But she couldn’t,” finished Gerry. “ And 
the world hasn’t worn a path to Father’s studio 
yet. Aunt Letty, I feel exactly as Mother 
must have. I know Father is a genius, but if 
he only would be more practical. It wouldn’t 
hurt his art one bit to sell it. Aunt Geraldine 
told me that when Mother married him he was 
a member of the Art Club in the city, was sell- 
ing his things as fast as he could paint them, 
had pictures at all the big exhibitions, and was 
friends with men who are famous now. And 
then suddenly he got to experimenting with 
those bright colors of his, and gave up the 
other work, and they got poorer and poorer. 
No more money came in, and if they had not 
had this house to fall back on and that tiny in- 


ioo The Little Cockalorum 

come which Father draws every month, they 
might have starved. Aunt Geraldine says he 
is selfish, but I know he isn’t. We people can’t 
understand how a real artist will give up every- 
thing for his ideals. It’s just that Daddy 
doesn’t realize how very badly off we are. He 
doesn’t see that the furniture is falling to 
pieces under us, that there are holes in the car- 
pets, that Elizabeth has had very little educa- 
tion, that I have no special training for any- 
thing worth while, that Ted is almost in high 
school and wants so badly to be an architect 
and will need years of study. He just dreams 
away, and paints the most gorgeous pictures I 
ever saw. They always have honorable men- 
tion when he gets up some ambition and sends 
them to the exhibitions and once in a while 
someone buys one. He is a perfect old darling 
but he certainly makes me want to shake him 
sometimes.” 

“ Gerry! ” But back of the tears in Aunt 
Letty’s blue eyes there was the suspicion of 
laughter at the ambitious little girl who was 
trying to rise and pull her whole family out of 
the rut with her. 

“ There! Now, Aunt Letty, don’t you dare 


101 


A New Neighbor 

tell me you don’t like it. Can I rummage in 
the attic just a few minutes? I want to see if 
I can find any curtains.” 

“ Curtains in summer? ” exclaimed Aunt 
Letty. 

“ Certainly. They blow with the breeze, 
and they frame those windows into such beau- 
tiful pictures. I know the Writer Lady will 
want curtains.” And Gerry was off to the at- 
tic. She came back in a few minutes with her 
arms full. 

“ Look what I found, the most heavenly old 
chintz!” She held up a length of small-fig- 
ured material with tiny bunches of garden 
flowers scattered over a cream ground. “ It is 
just right. We shall make valances and covers 
for the lady, and bring your garden right into 
her room. And we’ll hang these pretty white 
ruffled ones at the windows and after I run 
home and get that old blue ginger jar on our 
top cupboard shelf and fill it with some of 
Elizabeth’s zinnias we’ll have ready the pret- 
tiest room the Writer Lady ever saw, and I 
don’t care if she has been in palaces.” 

The step-ladder was brought up-stairs, Aunt 
Letty, her mouth full of pins and needles, 


102 The Little Cockalorum 

helped “ hang,” and sure enough in half an 
hour more the room was transformed. A light 
patchwork quilt with baskets of gingham flow- 
ers lay folded over the bottom of the mahog- 
any bed with its creamy coverlet and snow- 
white, lace-edged pillow-cases. The oval rug 
filled the center of the rich, old waxed floor. 
A length of the chintz was made into curtains 
to veil the front of the wash-stand and hide 
part of the old but necessary crockery. The top 
with the oval mirror was turned into a dress- 
ing-table, all ready for the new neighbor’s 
dainty personal belongings. A drop-leaf ma- 
hogany table, from which one leaf was gone, 
had been brought out of a storeroom at Aunt 
Letty’s protest, given a rubbing up with oil, 
and set at right angles with the window which 
framed the river view. 

“ That’s where she will want to write, I 
know,” said Gerry, standing back to get the 
effect. Then she sank into the rocker, fanning 
herself with Aunt Letty’s apron she had bor- 
rowed. 

“ Lands, child, you’re all tuckered out. I 
shouldn’t have let you do it, but I guess when 
you get set on doing anything ” 


A New Neighbor 103 

Gerry giggled. “ Like when I would cut 
my hair, and would climb the tip-top branch of 
the apple-tree, and would insist on going with- 
out a hat all winter. I always learn in the end, 
but I guess I am one of those unfortunates, 
Aunt Letty, who have to find things out for 
themselves. I hope this college idea won’t fall 
through. I’d die, yes, I’d just lie down and 
die.” 

“ It won’t, dearie. You’re workin’ hard 
enough to make it go. But if it should you 
could easily do something else, fix up folks’ 
rooms like you did this one ” 

“ You mean be an interior decorator; that’s 
what they’re called. Do you know I’d like 
that if I weren’t going to college. It seems 
such a — well, such a helpful way to spend one’s 
life, — bringing beautiful colors and lovely 
things into people’s homes.” 

“ You’ve got the knack, Gerry. Some folks 
have and others haven’t. Now Elizabeth, 
she’s as neat as a pin, but she’d have a fit at 
that desk settin’ against the window that way. 
I did at first, but now I can see your point.” 

“ I’m glad you like it, Aunt Letty. You 
were a peach to let me fix things up. I hope 


io4 The Little Cockalorum 

Miss Writer Lady, Ruth Merrill, likes it too. 
Now I must go, for I know supper is ready 
&nd I am as hungry as a bear.” 

“ Gerry ! I clean forgot. There’s a whole 
new batch of cookies in the jar ” 

“And you didn’t get your cake baked for the 
lady!” 

“ I’ll do it to-night.” 

“ And I’ll come over and beat your eggs for 
you. See you later, Aunt Letty.” 

As Gerry swung herself down the steep 
steps two at a time, Aunt Letty Wilcox closed 
the door of the new boarder’s room carefully 
behind her as if to keep out the least speck of 
dust that might mar Gerry’s handiwork. 
Gerry Houston was very near to the innermost 
shrines of Aunt Letty’s hospitable heart. 


CHAPTER VII 


A GLIMPSE OF THE ORIENT 

Sundays in Oxford, especially summer 
Sundays, Gerry used to say, were the nearest 
things to heaven she could imagine. It was 
delicious to lie just a little longer in bed 
dreaming and planning in the morning quiet, 
to join Ted, Elizabeth and her father over the 
leisurely breakfast that thoughtful Elizabeth 
always made an effort to have a bit nicer than 
on week days, to hear the rival songs of the 
church bells, to see the folks passing and bow- 
ing or stopping for a short chat, to dress in 
one's best and sit through the quiet summer 
morning in the soothing stillness of the old 
church. 

“ I’m going to Sewells’ after church,” Gerry 
announced the day after Aunt Letty’s new 
boarder arrived. “ I haven’t seen Adine for 
an age.” 

“ Going to spread the news? ” teased Ted. 

105 


io6 The Little Cockalorum 

“ Smarty ! I haven’t much to tell,” flared 
up Gerry. Then, “ Has anyone seen Miss 
Merrill to-day? ” 

Elizabeth and Ted shook their heads. Ap- 
parently the new neighbor was not showing 
herself to curious Oxford. 

“ Will you be home to dinner? ” Elizabeth 
asked. 

“ Not if I’m asked to stay,” returned Gerry 
frankly. Then, drawing on her silk gloves, 
and smoothing down the crisp organdie, which 
would pop out just like Gerry’s own enthusi- 
asm, she was off. 

“ Gerry’s certainly got this family skinned a 
mile,” said Ted, as he watched her pass out the 
creaking gate. 

“ Ted, what do you mean? ” 

“ What I said. Gerry keeps us alive and 
on the map of Oxford. If it weren’t for her 
plans and airs we’d be just plain poor. But 
she goes flouncing along in her lavender dress, 
and Oxford sits up and takes notice. Gee, if 
Father had half the push Gerry has ” 

“Sh-sh!” warned Elizabeth, pointing to- 
ward the half-open door that led to the Hous- 
tons’ living-room. They could see their father 


A Glimpse of the Orient 107 

sitting in his favorite low hour-glass chair, 
reading quietly as was his custom on Sundays. 
He made it a point never to visit his studio on 
that day, passing the time reading, and taking 
long, delightful walks with the children in the 
afternoon. Sundays in the Houston home 
were days to look forward to. Then Mr. 
Houston would throw off the preoccupied air 
that his work always seemed to clothe him in, 
and would break into the most fascinating 
stories of art school life in Paris, boyish pranks 
and plans for their happiness. 

“ I simply adore Father on Sundays,” 
Gerry said once at the Sewells’ and shocked 
and amused them at the same time. To-day 
she met Adine at church, and together they 
loitered home to the big house, meeting many 
of their friends and acquaintances. Half-way 
home Dave Manning caught up with them, 
looking very different in his “ Sunday clothes ” 
from the grocery boy of week days. 

“ Well, Gerry, how’s college? ” he asked. 

“ Fine. Only I haven’t had time to think 
about it for weeks, it seems. I have a job, 
Dave, almost a full-sized one, but I don’t think 
it is going to take me very far. I’ll have to get 


108 The Little Cockalorum 

something else too. But oh, Dave, isn’t it 
hard to work in vacation time with the woods 
simply wonderful, and the river warm enough 
for swimming and — everything? ” 

Dave threw back his head and laughed 
heartily. “ That’s the trouble with these fiery 
people, Adine,” he said; “ they want the world 
but they hate to lift their little fingers to make 
it spin around.” 

Adine smiled and they both glanced at 
Gerry, who, with flaming color and eyes blaz- 
ing, was getting ready to fling back her retort. 
Then catching their glance she suddenly real- 
ized the teasing. “ Oh, you two, you make 
me tired! ” she said half shamefacedly. 

“ I know what Gerry means, Dave,” Adine 
took up the cudgels for her friend. “ Sum- 
mer is such a beautiful time to play, especially 
when you’ve worked hard all winter. I think 
Gerry is very brave to attempt what she has, 
only I miss her a lot.” 

“ So does everyone,” agreed Dave. “ Met a 
lot of the old bunch last week, and they wanted 
to know if Gerry had moved or gone to the 
city. Say, someone ought to get busy and 
give a party or something to keep us together. 


A Glimpse of the Orient 109 

If we don’t look out we will drift apart and 
then there won’t be any old crowd any 
more.” 

“ Dave Manning, you’re right! Come on in 
with us and we’ll plan a party right away.” 

Adine seconded the motion, and Dave went 
in to the Sewells’ shady veranda with its low, 
roomy chairs and piles of interesting looking 
magazines. 

“ We could give it here ” began Adine, 

but Gerry interrupted her. 

“ No, I want to give it. I haven’t given one 
for so long; one of the old-fashioned garden 
parties we used to have; remember? ” 

“ Well,” conceded Adine, “ if you do, I 
want to be allowed to contribute a cake and 
have cook make a big freezer full of her deli- 
cious raspberry ice.” Gerry threw her a 
glance of mute thanks. It was Adine’s beau- 
tiful tact that made their friendship so close 
and enduring. The subject of refreshments, 
with their strain upon the family pocketbook, 
had not entered Gerry’s head, of course, when 
she had characteristically offered to be hostess 
to the old crowd. 

“ Let’s see, who’ll we invite? Get out your 


no "The Little Cockalorum 

pencil, Dave,” went on the irrepressible Gerry. 
“ Let’s make it a nice big affair, and ask every- 
one we like and want to. I’d love, simply love 
to have Dr. Honeywell. He’s old, but he’s a 
dear, and I believe he would like it, too.” 

And so they started to work, and before 
they knew it the list was impossibly long and 
they had to start and “ weed out,” as Gerry 
put it, “ although you can have a big crowd 
outdoors as long as the refreshments hold out.” 

“ Do you suppose that Miss Merrill would 
want to come, really? ” asked Adine, checking 
off the list which Dave had handed her. 

“ I don’t see how we could leave her out very 
well when she would be the only person in the 
neighborhood not there.” Gerry was indig- 
nant. 

“ I was just wondering — what’s she like? ” 

“ I don’t know. I haven’t met her, or even 
seen her, for I wasn’t home when she arrived, 
but I love her name, Ruth Starr Merrill, and 
she writes, and this morning I saw a perfectly 
stunning wardrobe trunk waiting on Aunt 
Letty’s porch to be carried up-stairs.” 

“ So that settles it, doesn’t it? She’s a very 
nice person, and she wants to come to our 


Ill 


A Glimpse of the Orient 

party because she has a wardrobe trunk and 
writes and has a pretty name. Gerry Hous- 
ton, you’re a funny girl ! ” But in Dave Man- 
ning’s laughing gray eyes there was the addi- 
tional information that she was a very lovable 
one, too. 

The invitations to the Houstons’ party went 
out the next day. Adine had asked to write 
them, and as Gerry would be busy at the doc- 
tor’s, she agreed, but insisted upon inviting the 
new neighbor herself. She felt that this would 
be a delicate undertaking that needed tact and 
explanation. 

Accordingly the next evening she ventured 
over to Aunt Letty’s to obey the hospitable 
custom of Oxford and welcome the new neigh- 
bor. 

“ How is she? ” she whispered to Aunt 
Letty, who was sitting on her front porch en- 
joying the fresh evening breeze. 

“ Well, I don’t like to talk much about folks 
the first day or two I know ’em, but so far I’d 
say she lived pretty near up to what you said 
about her,” said Aunt Letty. 

“ Even to the love affair? ” Gerry asked half 
seriously. 


112 The Little Cockalorum 

“ Sh-sh,” motioned Aunt Letty, with a back- 
ward nod of her head. “ How would I know, 
after only two breakfasts, dinners, and sup- 
pers? ” 

“ Just the same,” teased Gerry, “ I bet you 
do. I really came to call on her. Will you 
please tell her, Mrs. Wilcox, that Miss Geral- 
dine Houston awaits her pleasure? ” 

A minute after Aunt Letty’s portly figure 
had disappeared into the darkened house, her 
cheery voice called down-stairs, “ Miss Merrill 
says will you come up ? ” 

Gerry obeyed, and was duly presented by 
Aunt Letty as, “ little Gerry Houston, who 
lives next door, and I love her as if she were 
my own.” 

“ What a beautiful compliment, Miss Hous- 
ton, don’t you think so? I am certainly glad 
to meet anyone whom Mrs. Wilcox thinks so 
much of. And I do hope you’ll pardon my 
not coming down-stairs, but you see I am in 
negligee, for I was doing a little unpacking 
this evening.” 

Gerry’s eyes sparkled appreciatively at the 
warmth of her reception and at the pretty pic- 
ture Miss Merrill made in her gray negligee 


A Glimpse of the Orient 113 

that shaded from smoke color at the hem to 
pure white at the throat and was embroidered 
in sprays of pale pink plum blossoms. When 
she turned to face the crystal-fringed lamp 
Gerry caught a glimpse of a silken-fine thread 
of gold about her neck, and a silk lining as lus- 
trous and pale as the pink lining of a shell. 
She fairly caught her breath at the beauty of 
it, and for a full second forgot to answer the 
greeting so prettily extended. 

“ It’s beautiful,” Gerry whispered. Then 
flushed and stammered, “ Oh, I beg your par- 
don, I didn’t mean to be rude. I have such a 
bad habit of admiring anything that pleases 
me.” 

Miss Merrill glanced with puzzled expres- 
sion at her kimono, then smiled shyly. “Yes, 
isn’t it a beauty? A very dear friend of mine 
brought it from Japan. But do sit down, 
won’t you? ” 

With a thank you, Gerry stepped into the 
room she had transformed, but Aunt Letty did 
not follow, feeling probably that Gerry could 
better make the acquaintance of Miss Merrill 
alone. It did not take long, for under Gerry’s 
friendliness Miss Merrill’s slight reserve soon 


ii4 The Little Cockalorum 

melted and they chatted away about nothing 
like old friends. 

Once, as Miss Merrill turned to her dress- 
ing-table to tuck a pin in the soft coils of her 
brown hair, Gerry’s quick eyes noticed that the 
rows of toilet articles laid out on top of what 
had been the hideous old wash-stand were a 
clear light amber, monogrammed in black, 
that a long, narrow box of black lacquer 
inlaid with mother-of-pearl and jade backed 
these, while a small, round, heavily chased 
silver box, evidently for powder or cream, 
had for its lid a solid piece of lapis lazuli 
of a heavenly shade of blue. There was 
another object which looked like a medi- 
aeval carved shrine, its doors standing the least 
bit on the jar, and inside Gerry fancied she 
could catch the outlines of a photograph. 

“You have so many lovely things,” Gerry 
exclaimed, “ that I have completely forgotten 
my good manners. I feel like a very little girl 
who comes to visit for the first time. My eyes 
are popping right out of my head! ” 

“ It does look something like a museum, my 
collection,” laughed Miss Merrill, “ but I love 
them all, although they do look rather strange 


Glimpse of the Orient 115 

in this quaint old room. I felt as though I 
had stepped back a hundred years into the set- 
ting of an old romance when I opened this 
door the other night/’ 

“ Oh, did you really like it? I’m so glad; I 
tried so hard ” Gerry stopped in confu- 

sion. She had not meant to tell, at least not 
so soon, how she had decorated the stranger’s 
room. 

“ That explains it then. I rather thought 
Mrs. Wilcox showed exceptional artistic taste. 
You must be a very unusual girl to do all this 
yourself. Have you ever studied interior dec- 
orating? ” 

Gerry blushed delightedly. “ Oh no, but I 
just love to do it. You see Father is an artist, 
and I suppose I inherit his love of color and 
beautiful things, though I can’t draw a straight 
line. It’s not his fault, poor dear; he used to 
try to teach me when I was little, but I got a 
stubborn notion in my head that I didn’t want 
to learn, and Father never forces us to do any- 
thing, you know. Ted draws, though, funny 
little straight-line pictures that are different 
from the things most boys try to do. Father 
says he has talent, although he thinks he’ll 


1 16 The Little Cockalorum 


never make a painter. I hope he will be an 
architect, if he can ever get the training. Now 
with me, I love color and everything that is 
beautiful; sometimes they make me want to 
cry, they thrill me so, but I want to handle 
them. I never want to put my beauties down 
on a flat piece of canvas ; I want to take them 
up in my fingers and feel them. I love to run 
a piece of beautiful silk through my fingers 
and watch the light play on it, and I like to 
hold a bit of old carving in my hands and won- 
der about the person who made it. Then I 
like to take my golds and blues and violets and 
sort them out and experiment to see which 
colors look best with others. I used to love to 
play with patches of silks w r hen I was a child, 
and when I am in New York Aunt Geraldine 
can hardly get me away from the silk counters, 
or the Japanese stores. If I weren’t planning 
to go to college I’d love to be a decorator.” 

“ It’s a beautiful calling — for a woman,” re- 
marked Miss Merrill, “ and I should say you 
were undoubtedly fitted for it.” Then 
abruptly she changed the subject and apolo- 
gized for the confusion of her room. “ I was 
just unpacking the last of my boxes,” she ex- 


A Glimpse of the Orient 117 

plained. “ I like to have my things with me 
wherever I go. You see, I am something of a 
nomad. I have never had a home of my own. 
Father was a great traveler, and I used to 
wander with him, so I am accustomed to ‘ liv- 
ing in a trunk, ’ as they say. What you see 
here,” — with a wave of her hand — “ are all my 
Lares and Penates.” 

“ How romantic it must be to wander about 
the world,” exclaimed Gerry, “ and won’t you 
let me help you unpack? I’d love to! ” She 
seemed so eager that Miss Merrill could hardly 
have refused, so in a minute Gerry was attack- 
ing the lid of the last box with as much curios- 
ity as energy. 

“ Romantic, maybe,” said Miss Merrill, an- 
swering her remark, “ but not always a com- 
fortable existence to one who loves a home.” 

“ It must have given you lots to write 
about,” Gerry said, incautiously revealing the 
fact that Aunt Letty had given her this bit of 
information about her new boarder’s affairs. 

Miss Merrill laughed at this heartily. Her 
laugh was good to hear. Gerry tried to think 
what her voice reminded her of and decided it 
was like a bell which vibrated long after the 


1 1 8 Lhe Little Cockalorum 


actual tone had died. “ I’m afraid Mrs. Wil- 
cox has been talking about me,” Miss Merrill 
was saying. “ Yes, I write, though not al- 
ways the things I want to write. That’s one 
reason why I came here, to get peace and quiet 
for some new work I am trying to do.” Gerry 
looked up expectantly, but Miss Merrill did 
not go any further into the description of her 
work. Gerry found out before the evening 
was over that one of the reasons why Miss 
Merrill was so fascinating was that there were 
so many things she never told. One was al- 
ways getting a little peep through half -closed 
doors, which, like the doors of the little carved 
shrine on her dressing-table, remained just so, 
no matter how one longed to see the interest- 
ing, shadowy something they concealed. 

They chatted delightfully, however, for the 
next hour while Gerry helped her unpack a 
long row of beautiful books which she set at 
the back of her table, using as book-ends two 
bronze idols from East India. “ Buddha and 
Ganesha, the elephant- faced god,” explained 
Miss Merrill. They also unpacked and ar- 
ranged a curious old chased bronze ink-stand, 
with two big wells sunk in the top, one for ink 


A Glimpse of the Orient 119 

and the other for sand, and having at each side 
a sconce into which they stuck two tall smooth 
candles of deep cream color. 

“ From Christie’s in London,” Miss Merrill 
explained, “ and made in the days when they 
wrote by candle-light and blotted their ink 
with fine sand instead of blotting-paper.” 

There was also a tooled leather desk set of 
scarlet and gold, a portfolio of papers in tar- 
nished gilt brocade, a vase of blue Ming porce- 
lain — 

“ Oh,” exclaimed Gerry as she pulled the 
tissue paper from this, “ Dr. Honeywell has 
one just like it! ” 

Miss Merrill seemed interested, and so the 
whole story of Dr. Honeywell, of her frantic 
search for work, of Aunt Geraldine and her 
offer, of her high hopes for her father, of Eliza- 
beth and Ted all came bursting forth until 
Gerry was breathless and her audience was 
sympathetic. 

“ There,” said Gerry, “ you have the story 
of my life. Elizabeth says I tell everything I 
know the first hour I meet someone new. I 
wish I didn’t, but somehow things just slip 
out.” 


120 The hit tie Cockalorum 

It was not until Miss Merrill was saying 
good-night at the top of Aunt Letty’s narrow 
stairs that Gerry burst out, “And here I have 
almost gone and I forgot to tell you what I 
really came over for.” 

“ I thought you came to call,” laughed Miss 
Merrill. 

“ I did, and to ask you to our party next 
week. I don’t suppose it will seem very excit- 
ing to you, but we’d love dearly to have you. 
Everyone, that is everyone interesting in Ox- 
ford, will be there.” 

Miss Merrill hesitated for just a second. 
“ I did not intend to go out much when I came 
here,” she began slowly, “ but it would scarcely 
be neighborly to refuse, would it? ” 

And so the next day, Gerry was telling 
Adine that Oxford would have a chance of 
meeting Miss Merrill, who from Gerry’s ex- 
cited description took on the dignity of a prin- 
cess and the mysterious charm of a siren. 

The day of the party dawned hot but clear. 
Ted and Gerry were up early before the dew 
was off the grass, getting the garden in shape. 
“ If we didn’t have a party once in a while,” 
said Gerry, tugging at a tough bunch of grass 



“What Are You Two Up To?" 




















121 


A Glimpse of the Orient 

beside the stone step of the side door, “ we’d be 
overgrown with weeds.” 

She had asked Dr. Honeywell for the day 
off, promising to make it up with interest. It 
seemed as if there were a hundred things to be 
done. Elizabeth was busy all morning mak- 
ing up dozens of tiny sandwiches with the most 
mysterious fillings. Dave stopped on his 
rounds to deliver his share of the party, fruit 
and home-made grape juice for the punch, also 
the freezer of ice and some strings of Jap lan- 
terns that Adine sent over. Adine herself ap- 
peared with two huge iced cakes fresh from the 
oven. 

“ We’ve plenty of eats,” remarked Gerry as 
she counted plates and spoons and dainty 
fringed napkins, some of them borrowed from 
Aunt Letty. “ Now if our entertainment only 

turns out as well ” with a side glance at 

Dave, who was helping Adine pour sand into a 
row of Jap lanterns as ballast. 

“ What are you two up to anyway? ” Adine 
asked. “ You’ve been giggling your heads off 
all afternoon. You needn’t worry, Gerry, 
about your party. They are always successes, 
just because you don’t plan too much. That’s 


U2 The Little Cockalorum 

what we all love about them, their spontane- 
ousness.” 

“ Spontaneity, young lady,” corrected Rus- 
sell England, commonly known as Russ, or 
Rusty. Russ was Dave Manning’s closest 
friend, the only son of the dignified lawyer in 
the old house that stood alone on a hill at the 
edge of town. Russell had no mother, but was 
not allowed to feel neglected, for every woman 
in town had taken a turn at spoiling him, not 
always for his good. Russell would be a 
sophomore at Yale the next term and was 
feeling his superiority keenly. 

“ Thanks,” Adine gravely accepted the cor- 
rection. “ How we would miss you, Rusty, 
our trusty lexicon ! ” 

“ Oh, I’m a handy little thing to have around 
the house. Do mostly anything from tuning 
the piano to bathing the canary. Where do 
you want this lantern, Princess? ” 

Adine looked up quickly. “ I haven’t heard 
that name for so long,” she said softly to Russ. 
It was a pretty nickname they had given her 
as children, when, because of her infirmity, she 
could not romp with the rest of them and had 
always been given the honorary role of prin- 


A Glimpse of the Orient 123 

cess so she could sit on a throne and watch 
them. 

“Well, you are a princess; at least Gerry 
thinks so; don’t you, old dear? ” 

“ Russ England, stop old-dearing me and 
get to work. It’s five o’clock and I haven’t 
dressed yet.” 

“And little Miss New York wants to sur- 
prise Oxford with some marvelous creation, I 
suppose. All right, I’ll hurry, because I’m 
going over to Mannings’ for supper. Mrs. 
Manning promised me some fresh cinnamon 
bun.” 

“ Disgusting! These people who are always 
thinking of something to eat,” said Gerry, at 
the same time biting into an “ uneven ” sand- 
wich that Elizabeth had just brought out. Of 
course this set the whole bunch roaring with 
laughter, in which Gerry herself couldn’t help 
but join. 

Parties in Oxford did not observe city hours. 
At seven-thirty, before the long summer twi- 
light had quite faded into the moonlit night, 
the guests started to arrive. 

There were only a few introductions neces- 
sary. Mr. and Mrs. Sewell appropriated Dr. 


124 The Little Cockalorum 

Honeywell immediately, and promised the 
flurried Gerry that they would make Miss 
Merrill at home and see that she met the doc- 
tor. A few minutes later, when Miss Merrill, 
dressed in something soft and white, came 
through the hedge like some pretty ghost of 
bygone days, and walked into the group under 
the lanterns, she was received as cordially as if 
she had lived in Oxford all her life. It was 
Mrs. Sewell who presented the doctor to the 
new neighbor. 

“ This is Miss Merrill, Doctor, of whom 
Gerry has been telling us so much,” she said, 
as Miss Merrill moved further into the lantern 
glow, holding out her hand to the doctor, but 
he stood silent as if rooted to the spot, his eyes, 
back of their queer, square spectacles, fastened 
not on Miss Merrill’s smiling, flushed face, but 
upon something that hung suspended from a 
thread of finest gold about her neck, something 
that even in that soft dim light looked cloudy 
pink, plum-shaped, and delicately carved. 
Miss Merrill faltered; her hand sought her 
bosom and tucked the small pink ornament 
among the folds of lace from which it had es- 
caped. Then Dr. Honeywell’s eyes sought 


A Glimpse of the Orient 125 

her face, and for a full second they stood si- 
lently regarding each other. The Sewells, 
turning to chat with someone else, had not no- 
ticed this silent little drama, and when they 
turned around again a minute later, they found 
Miss Merrill and the doctor chatting like old 
friends. 

“ Just look at Father,” Gerry whispered to 
Adine in a free moment; “ isn’t he a wonder? 
He always makes me think of a French court- 
ier or something, his manners are so beauti- 
ful.” Secretly Gerry was pleased at the pros- 
pect of a new friend for her father, someone 
like Miss Merrill who understood his pictures 
and could speak his language, as it were. 

When all were seated on the chairs, rugs, 
and cushions scattered over the lawn, Gerry, 
Dave, and Russell, and Bob Schofield, one of 
the cleverest boys in the old crowd, disap- 
peared into the house. They were gone, it 
seemed, only a few minutes when at a signal 
from the porch, Ted switched on the light from 
Russell’s roadster at the gate which threw a 
powerful “ spot ” on a certain portion of the 
hedge. This with a small bench in front of it 
and a baby poplar pointing to the sky at each 


n6 The Little Cockalorum 


end, made a perfect little stage setting that 
drew “ ahs ” and “ ohs ” from the guests. 

Then into the limelight stepped Russell, 
magnificent in a real mandarin costume of silk 
and brocade. 

“ Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, “ we 
are going to try to present to you to-night in 
the form of Chinese pantomime the pathetic 
little story of the willow plate. You prob- 
ably know. 


“ — the legend centuries old, 

Of a mandarin rich in lands and gold, 

Of Koong-Shee fair and Chang the good, 

Who loved each other as lovers should ; 

How they hid in the Gardener’s hut a while, 
Then fled away to the Beautiful Isle. 

Though a cruel father pursued them there, 

And would have killed the hopeless pair, 

But kindly powers by pity stirred, 

Changed each into a beautiful bird.” 

His prologue ended, he stood aside and the 
play was on. A crescent moon peeped over 
the hedge as Gerry entered dressed in the rai- 
ment of a wealthy Chinese girl and waited at 
the bench for her lover, Chang, who was Dave 


■A Glimpse of the Orient 127 

disguised as a young Chinaman, also in rich 
robes. 

“ Where did they get the idea and the beau- 
tiful costumes?” whispered Adine to Eliza- 
beth as they watched the pathetic love affair of 
the two, the angry father so well done by Bob 
Schofield, the pursuit across the bridge, which 
was nobly acted by the bench; Koong-Shee 
with her distaff, and Chang with a lacquered 
box of jewels; their hiding; the setting fire to 
their house by the father, done with beautiful 
red lights left over from the Fourth. 

“ Miss Merrill had the costumes locked up 
in a chest in her room,” whispered back Eliza- 
beth. “ Gerry read the story of the plate in 
one of Dr. Honeywell’s books. We’ve been 
eating off willow ware for years but never 
knew what the little pictures meant until 
Gerry ” 

But just here there was a hitch in the per- 
formance. Back of the hedge Ted had been 
stationed with two captive pigeons to release 
when the lovers’ home should have burned 
enough and their souls should ascend into the 
willow tree as doves. But the pigeons had 
gotten restless, and before the psychologic mo- 


n8 The Little Cockalorum 

ment had taken things into their own hands 
and broken away from Ted’s arms. 

For a second Gerry’s face was a study in 
dismay. Then she broke into laughter, and 
everyone followed suit. Russell stepped for- 
ward and in his best interpreter manner said : 

“And now kind friends your fancy use 
And pray do not our play abuse ! 

For Chang and his sweetheart fair, Koong-Shee 
Are perched in the barn most happily.” 

The crescent moon smiled down on a happy 
party that made merry under the lanterns in 
the old garden. There wasn’t a crumb left to 
tell the tale of how good the refreshments were. 
At a request from Gerry, Russell, not the least 
reluctant, got out his latest accomplishment, a 
steel guitar, and to its sobbing strains they all 
joined in the sad old songs that young folks 
love to sing, and older folks to hear under a 
moonlit sky. 


CHAPTER VIII 


GERRY MAKES A SACRIFICE 

“ Getting ready for a party and having it 
are fun,” said Gerry the next morning with a 
yawn, as she stood surveying the trampled gar- 
den, “ but I certainly hate the cleaning up 
afterward.” 

Elizabeth, washing leaning towers of dishes, 
regarded her sister with a little smile, then 
shook her head. “ You always were a good 
commencer, Gerry,” she said, “ but ” 

“ Pm not a good finisher, is that what you 
mean? Here, give me a dry towel and I’ll 
show you,” and she attacked the dishes sav- 
agely. There was something grim and re- 
pressed about Gerry this morning, that made 
Elizabeth suspect all was not right with her 
world. When something troubled Gerry she 
was apt to crawl into her shell like a disturbed 
turtle, but when the world went right she was 
open-hearted and generous with her joy. 

129 


130 The Little Cockalorum 

They washed and wiped on without words 
for a few minutes, until at last Elizabeth broke 
the silence. 

“ What’s troubling you, Gerry? ” 

“ Nothing; that is, nothing much. I wasn’t 
going to say anything until it was all over. 
You see I am going to resign my position with 
Dr. Honeywell to-day.” 

“ Did anything happen?” Elizabeth’s prac- 
tical mind immediately conjured up some pic- 
ture of broken china, or muddled accounts, for 
which the haphazard Gerry was responsible. 

“ No; he doesn’t even know it yet. But I’ll 
tell you if you promise not to say anything to 
anyone just yet. Miss Merrill and I were 
talking the other day, and I happened to men- 
tion that I wanted to make more money. 
Then she told me of a friend of hers, a writer 
who is up in Maine working on a book that 
must be finished by the end of September. 
She needs a secretary, some one intelligent who 
could take care of the details, verify things, use 
the encyclopedia, etc., and Miss Merrill said I 
would be just the person. She would pay well 
for the convenience of having someone just for 
seven or eight weeks, you see, someone who 


Gerry Makes a Sacrifice 131 

would work early and late with her. So Miss 
Merrill wrote to her about me, and got an an- 
swer yesterday, saying to send me immedi- 
ately.” 

“ You mean you’ll be going all the way up 
to Maine this week, maybe? ” 

“ This week? I’ll take a train for Boston 
in the morning; that is if I can straighten 
things up for Dr. Honeywell to-day.” 

“ It seems sort of a shame to leave him now,” 
suggested Elizabeth. 

“ I know; that’s what worries me. But I 
must have the money, Bess, and what he pays 
me will not be enough. I think he’ll under- 
stand. There now, your dishes are dried. I 
must catch the next car.” 

It was true. Gerry did not like the prospect 
of telling Dr. Honeywell that she was going to 
leave him. She realized that she had become 
more to him than just a housekeeper or secre- 
tary. She was a companion ; she had brought 
brightness into his lonely old life as she had let 
the sunlight into the corners of his musty old 
house. She would miss him too, as much as 
he would her, for she had gleaned so much in- 
struction and interesting information from her 


132 The Little Cockalorum 

work with him. She would miss the Toby- 
jug, the row of blue “ State ” plates, the pre- 
cious Bohemian glass that had all become clean 
and shining under her loving care. 

She waited long in answer to her ring, and 
had just decided that Hattie was probably out 
marketing and the doctor in his garden and 
that she would have to go around and enter by 
the gate, when the doctor himself opened the 
door as he had the first day she rang his bell. 

“ Hattie late again? ” she asked, noticing a 
sad and worried look on his usually beaming 
face. 

“ Hattie asked for a few days off yesterday 
to visit her sister up the valley, so I let her go, 

and Nancy ” He stopped as if his voice 

were choked with tears. 

“ Nancy? What’s the matter with Nancy?” 

“ While we were both away this morning she 
went groping around by herself, as she will do, 
in the dark house, and fell down the open cellar 
door. One hip is so badly fractured ” 

“ Oh, the poor thing! ” Gerry cried, throw- 
ing aside her hat without looking to see where 
it landed. “ Where have you got her? ” 

“ On the couch in the dining-room,” said the 


Gerry Makes a Sacrifice 133 

doctor, leading the way back. “ I tried to 
carry her up-stairs, but I couldn’t. I gave the 
poor soul an anaesthetic to see if I could locate 
the break, but it is in the joint, and old 

bones, my dear ” and he shook his head 

sadly. 

Gerry found Nancy on the couch where the 
doctor, with what must have been superhuman 
strength for an old man, had managed to carry 
her. It was one of those old-fashioned affairs 
of haircloth, with one end raised, so that 
Nancy’s chin dropped uncomfortably upon her 
chest. 

“ Oh, she looks so uncomfortable. If we 
could only get her into a cool bed ” 

“ I don’t know why I feel so helpless,” 
sighed the doctor. “A few years ago I could 
have managed to do it myself, but the sudden- 
ness of it has unnerved me.” 

“ Of course it would,” soothed Gerry. 
“ Now we’ll plan some way of lifting her after 
we have brought the cot down from the attic.” 
Together they improvised a stretcher from an 
ironing-board and soon Nancy was resting be- 
tween cool sheets. 

“ I’d like to get Dr. Jackson over from 


134 7 /fe Little Cockalorum 

Summerville; he’s more of a surgeon than I,” 
Dr. Honeywell suggested. 

“ Very well, in just a minute I’ll run down 
to the store and ’phone to him,” Gerry prom- 
ised, for in Dr. Honeywell’s old-fashioned 
house a modern ’phone bell had never dis- 
turbed the echoes. 

And so Gerry’s morning passed. It was a 
sultry day, but she did not have time to think 
of the heat. She rushed up and down stairs, 
getting ready the sand-bags that the doctors de- 
cided poor Nancy’s old bones needed for sup- 
port. There was only a slim chance that she 
would ever be able to walk again. Then Gerry 
prepared the lunch, did some of the cleaning 
that Hattie had characteristically neglected, 
and settled down for a long siege of illness. 

“ Of course, I could send her to the hos- 
pital,” said the doctor as he watched Gerry 
prepare a dainty tray for the invalid. 

“ But you won’t have to,” supplied Gerry. 
“ Nancy has been too good a servant to send 
her off among strangers now. We’ll make her 
as comfortable as we can, and I know she’ll be 
happier here. I’m going to telephone over to 
Becket’s and ask Dave Manning to tell the 


Gerry Makes a Sacrifice 135 

folks I won’t be home for a few days, and 
bring some clothes over for me. Then when 
Hattie gets back I think we’ll manage very 
nicely. In fact,” she added with a nervous 
giggle, “ poor old Nancy will not be as much 
trouble in bed as she was around on her 
feet.” 

“ I hate to put this burden upon you, poor 
child,” kind Dr. Honeywell’s eyes filled with 
tears, “ but for a time it seems as if I shall have 
to accept your strong young shoulders to lean 
upon.” 

But he did not know what a sacrifice he was 
asking of Gerry. That evening when Dave 
arrived with her hand-bag packed by the ever- 
helpful Elizabeth, with a jar of her currant 
jelly sandwiched between Gerry’s rolled-up 
stockings, she left Nancy to the care of the 
doctor for a few minutes. 

“ I want to send a telegram,” she explained 
to Dave as she led the way to the railroad sta- 
tion. Dave walked around the waiting-room 
whistling with his hands in his pockets while 
Gerry phrased her words to the writer in 
Maine who wanted her immediately. 

When she turned from the window she said, 


136 The Little Cockalorum 

“ There, I feel better. I have just turned 
down a thirty a week job! ” 

“ Phew! ” whistled Dave. “ You talk like 
Standard Oil and United States Steel rolled 
into one. What’s the idea? ” 

So Gerry told him the whole story. “ Don’t 
you think I did the only possible thing, Dave?” 
she asked when she had finished, though her 
mouth quivered as she said it. 

“ Of course you did, little pal! And if this 
means that you won’t get to college in the fall, 
well — there are lots better things than college 
in this world, remember that, if anyone should 
drive up and ask you.” 

Gerry tried hard to remember that during 
the long days that passed. Dr. Honeywell in- 
sisted at first on getting a nurse, but as Gerry 
pointed out, Nancy was not really ill enough 
for that, and Hattie would be there to help lift 
the invalid. 

“ Besides I would have to be here to cook 
and superintend anyway,” ended Gerry. So 
the doctor submitted. 

Elizabeth came over the second week with 
clean clothes for Gerry and a bowl of pudding 
for Nancy. She was prepared to meet a house 


Gerry Makes a Sacrifice 137 

in as bad order as Gerry’s bureau drawers usu- 
ally were, and back in her mind was the idea 
that she might give a little advice and practical 
help to Gerry. 

What was her surprise then to walk into a 
house, sweet-smelling with the scent of the 
flowers blowing in from the garden at the back 
of the house, with the old floors waxed to mir- 
ror glossiness, with the rows of china shining 
and orderly. 

“ Gerry, you’re a better housekeeper than I 
imagined. I thought all the time you were 
more of a secretary to the doctor.” ' 

“ Doesn’t look much like me, does it, Bess? ” 
laughed Gerry. “ I suppose I am careless 
with my own things, but when I tackle some- 
thing for someone else it’s different, I guess. 
Now you must stay for lunch and let me show 
you how I can cook.” 

Elizabeth, who did not often lunch out in 
other people’s houses, seemed almost stiff as 
she sat down with her sister and the doctor and 
was served by Hattie. 44 You could have used 
a little less milk in your omelet and it wouldn’t 
have scorched,” was all she said, and went 
home with the news that Gerry was just one 


138 "The Little Cockalorum 

surprise after another, to which her father and 
Ted heartily agreed. 

Things did not move so smoothly for Gerry 
as it might have seemed to an outsider, for 
Nancy, made even more irritable by her illness 
and confinement to the bed, proved a problem 
not easily solved. At first she refused to take 
her food from Gerry, and it had been the doc- 
tor’s duty to carry the tray up to his old serv- 
ant. 

“ She’s just contrary,” exploded Gerry one 
day, as she helped the doctor with his burden 
as far as Nancy’s door. “ We’ll have to cure 
that! ” 

Accordingly, the next day Nancy’s lunch 
was postponed a full hour, so that when it ar- 
rived carried by Gerry, though the crabbed old 
woman did not say a word, she did not refuse 
it. Thereafter Gerry waited upon her, but re- 
ceived nothing but scowls for her attention. 

It was a hot afternoon a few days later when 
Gerry walked into Nancy’s room with a pitcher 
of cool lemonade for her, determined to “ have 
it out,” as she told the doctor. 

“ Here’s a cool drink for you, Nancy,” she 
said, pouring the tinkling lemonade into a 


Gerry Makes a Sacrifice 139 

glass. “ Will you be awfully nice to me and 
smile if I give it to you? You know, I’ve 
never really seen you smile.” 

Nancy turned her face to the pillow. “ I 
don’t know what you have against me, Nancy,” 
Gerry’s voice went on as cool as the drink she 
held in her hand. “ I’m sure I try to please 


“ That’s just it, Miss Geerleen,” Nancy’s 
quavering old voice broke in. “ I ain’t got a 
thing against you; that’s what makes me so 
mad. I don’t know what ails me; I guess it’s 
just because I have to lie here and lie, and I 
know I ain’t a mite o’ good to anyone any 
more; just like an old worn-out lamp or some- 
thing that folks put up on a shelf and say how 
good it used to burn. I wished I could die, 
and be done with it.” 

“ Nancy, Nancy dear,” cried Gerry, horri- 
fied, “ don’t talk like that ! God might hear 
you! Please don’t!” and Gerry was on her 
knees, her arm around the poor old gray head 
and her hand stopping the words that poured 
like poison from Nancy’s lips. 

Dr. Honeywell, stepping to the door a few 
minutes later, opened it a crack, thinking 


140 *Ihe Little Cockalorum 

Nancy was asleep because everything was so 
quiet, and saw through the crack Nancy’s gray 
head pillowed on Gerry’s shoulder and the thin 
body under the coverlet heaving with deep 
sobs. 

After that Gerry’s work was easy. Nancy 
seemed to brighten up even though the bones 
refused to set. The doctors shook their heads, 
and went so far as to suggest an old ladies’ 
home for her, but Gerry steadily refused, 
“Not yet, not just yet; she seems so happy 
here.” 

But one afternoon, when Gerry had gone 
over to Oxford for a little rest, to see her fam- 
ily and to give a hurried call at the Sewells’, a 
tragic thing happened. Hattie had been given 
instructions to look in upon Nancy every half- 
hour or so to attend to her wants. It was a 
sultry afternoon and Hattie had fallen asleep 
at the kitchen table. Nancy, her throat 
parched for a drink, tapped on the floor with 
the cane that Gerry had given her for the pur- 
pose, but Hattie did not hear. A pitcher stood 
on a table across the room. Not realizing her 
weakness, the poor old woman rose from her 
bed and tried to reach it for herself. They 


Gerry Makes a Sacrifice 141 

found her unconscious in the middle of the 
floor. 

It was only a few hours until Nancy had the 
wish she had so tragically desired the week 
before. 


CHAPTER IX 


GERRY POURS TEA 

It seemed strange to Gerry to come home 
again to live after the weeks spent at Dr. Hon- 
eywell’s. She had been so busy there, and she 
had seemed so necessary to him that the inac- 
tivity of home, where if she tried to help Eliza- 
beth she was usually “sent about her business,” 
annoyed her. True, she kept going to the 
doctor’s every day, but with poor Nancy gone 
she realized that Hattie could very easily at- 
tend to his needs. 

She mentioned that to him one day shortly 
after Nancy’s death, but he would not hear of 
her leaving. So she stayed on and chafed at 
the inability to add more than the part time 
salary to her bills in the jewel drawer of the 
old bureau. Her optimism and energy seemed 
for a while almost gone. She even became 
snarly with the home folks, a thing most un- 
usual for Gerry. 


142 


Gerry Pours Tea 143 

“ You can’t say a word to her these last few 
days but she flares up like a sky-rocket,” com- 
plained Ted, after Gerry had thrown down her 
napkin one evening at supper, pushed back her 
chair with a bang, and left the table without a 
word. 

“ She’s tired,” excused Elizabeth. 

“ The poor child was under a greater strain 
than we realized,” added Mr. Houston. 
“ Can’t you coax her to give up the doctor’s 
work and stay at home, Elizabeth? ” 

Elizabeth said she had tried until she was 
blue in the face, but that Gerry still had col- 
lege on her mind and would not give it up. 

“ College? ” echoed Mr. Houston for a min- 
ute, blankly. Then, “ Does she still think she 
is going to college this fall? It’s preposterous, 
out of the question ! ” 

“ Yes, and I bet that’s what ails her, too,” 
put in Ted, helping himself to Gerry’s un- 
tasted pie. “ When things go all right with 
Gerry she’s a peach, but gosh, how she can 
snap when she meets a snag in her plans ! ” 

“All in all, though, Ted, Gerry’s a pretty 
good sister,” came Mr. Houston’s quiet re- 
proof, and Ted, who was already sorry for 


144 The Little Cockalorum 

what he had said, finished his meal in si- 
lence. 

It was true, Gerry was tired. Her step did 
not have its usual spring. Running up and 
down stairs, preparing meals, carrying trays 
might be exercise, but it did not give one the 
joy and buoyancy of a good game on the 
courts or a swimming race across the river. 
And then, even more deadening was the 
thought that she might fail in the task she had 
set herself. 

When she had left the table, she wandered 
out through the orchard and let the soft sum- 
mer breeze dry the hot tears in her eyes. She 
suddenly felt forlorn and discouraged. Was 
there no one she could confide in, who under- 
stood ? And then she saw a light flash up in 
the Sewells’ living-room window and in a few 
minutes she was entering without knocking to 
find Adine seated under the lamp alone, sew- 
ing. 

“ Gerry, this is lovely! ” greeted Adine, try- 
ing to rise from the low, overstuffed chair. 
“ Mother and Father are away and I’ve been 
sitting here thinking how long it is since I saw 
you and wishing I could have a nice long chat 


Gerry Pours Tea 145 

with you. See what I’m making; some table 
runners and cushion covers for our room! ” 

“ Our room? ” repeated Gerry, dully. 

“Certainly, our room at Griffin! Mother 
has written and made all arrangements for one 
of those little suites with two bedrooms and a 
common sitting-room for us to share.” 

“ Oh, Adine, won’t that be wonderful! ” ex- 
claimed Gerry, brightening, but her face 
clouded again. “ Maybe I should not let your 
mother do it, though, for I may not be able to 
go after all.” 

“ Has anything happened? ” Adine asked in 
concern. 

“ No, that’s just it, it hasn’t. Here the 
summer is almost on the last lap, I haven’t 
much more than a month to get the rest of my 
money in, and I have only eighty-five dollars 
saved up.” 

Adine did not reply. She was trying to 
find an answer to Gerry’s problem without re- 
minding her of the offer her mother had made 
when Gerry had announced her intention of 
going to Griffin with Adine. She was won- 
dering if she could broach the subject of a loan 
when Gerry broke out: 


146 The Little Cockalorum 

“ I’m almost frantic, Princess; it has made 
me as cross as a bear, too. I’ve been just hor- 
rid to the family. But if I could only find a 
way to make some money quickly, I’d do any- 
thing for it, scrub office buildings, or take in 
washing.” 

Adine laughed at the picture, and Gerry 
joined her ruefully. “ Maybe you think it’s 
funny, but it isn’t. If I had just said in the 
beginning, * I am going to college this fall/ it 
wouldn’t be so bad. I could stand Aunt Ger- 
aldine crowing over me. But, you see, I made 
the mistake of saying, ‘ Father is going to send 
me,’ and now if I don’t go it will just give her 
another chance to think mean things of him.” 
The tears that had been so near Gerry’s eyes 
all evening now fell with a vengeance. Adine 
tried her best to soothe her, telling her that 
things were not hopeless yet, that no one would 
blame her father for not doing the impossible, 
and so on. She passed her cool fingers over 
Gerry’s hot forehead until the spasm of tears 
was over. 

“ I’m a fool, a perfect fool. I didn’t mean 
to make you share all my troubles,” she 
sobbed. 


Gerry Pours Tea 147 

“What’s a friend for, I’d like to know!” 
exclaimed Adine. “ There now, you look bet- 
ter after the storm. Run out and bring in a 
bottle of grape juice from the refrigerator 
and some cookies from the jar, and we’ll cele- 
brate and forget how cruelly Fate has treated 
us.” 

While they munched gingersnaps and 
sipped the cool grape punch, Adine said sud- 
denly, “ I almost forgot to tell you, Gerry, 
that Mother is giving a tea next week for a 
friend of hers who is coming up from New 
York for a short visit. She was wondering if 
you would come over and help me pour.” 

Gerry was delighted. “ Won’t that be fun? 
I’d love to. Do you suppose I can do it all 
right? I never have, you know.” 

“ Certainly. Just so you don’t get things 
mixed and give them cream when they want 
lemon.” 

“ Oh, de-ah, de-ah,” mimicked Gerry, pour- 
ing out grape juice with a flourish. “ Cawn’t 
I give you another cup, Miss Sewell? So re- 
freshing! Lemon? Two lumps? More hot 
water, please, Nora! ” 

Adine threw back her head and laughed 


148 The Little Cockalorum 

heartily. “ You’ll do, Gerry,” she managed 
to say, when three honks came from the street, 
one long one and two short toots. 

“Russ!” explained Adine. “He’s going 
to give us a ride. Mother happened to men- 
tion that I had not been sleeping well, so he 
said he would ride me round and round the 
town until I was tired enough to sleep like Rip 
Van Winkle. Come on, take my rose 
sweater! ” 

The two girls joined Russ in his father’s 
large car at the curb. Rob Schofield was with 
him. “ Thought we might pick up Dave,” 
said Russ, with a “Hello, Koong-Shee!” to 
Gerry. 

“And do you suppose we might squeeze in 
Elizabeth, too? ” asked Gerry, for a sincere 
feeling of shame made her want to share the 
good time with her patient young sister. 

“ Sure,” agreed Russ. So they stopped at 
Houstons’ and dragged the reluctant Eliza- 
beth away from her well-thumbed volume of 
“ Pride and Prejudice ” to speed away with 
them into the sweet summer night. 

Gerry had chosen to sit in front with Russ. 
“ I always feel as if we were going faster when 


Gerry Pours Tea 149 

I am in front. It makes you feel as if you 
were flying like a bird or — or something,” she 
had said as she took her place. They all 
laughed uproariously at this, Dave remarking 
that, of course, so many other things flew it 
was good to be specific. And then the spell of 
the summer stars was upon them. 

“Anything wrong, Gerry?” Russ asked in 
an undertone, as a ribbon of white road rolled 
out before them and tall rows of poplar trees 
stretched along like a precise army standing 
for review. 

Gerry did not answer immediately. She 
had begun to feel as if she were shifting her 
troubles to too many shoulders. 

“ Because if there is, you know me Al! I’d 
do a good deal for a spunky kid like you. 
Dave tells me you’re trying to gather up some 
money for college. Is that right? ” 

“ Yes, I’m trying, but I guess I’m not a 
very good gatherer,” sighed Gerry softly. 

“ Well, I was going to say that Father is 
awfully interested in you, you know. I 
told him all about you the other day, and 
if you’re hard up and can’t get enough by 
fall ” 


150 The Little Cockalorum 

“ Russ ! ” cried Gerry, putting her hands up 
to her burning cheeks. “ I couldn’t! Don’t, 
you know I couldn’t! ” 

Russell turned his wheel deftly to escape a 
prowling cat before he answered. “ Excuse 
me, Gerry! I know you’re awfully indepen- 
dent, and I admire you for it. I just wanted 
you to know that you had a friend to call on if 
you need him. That’s all. Go to it, and the 
best of luck to you! ” And then he broke into 
a very strong if not exactly true bass to 
“ Mighty Like a Rose,” which the three in 
back were humming to Elizabeth’s clear, sweet 
soprano. 

“ You’re sure you’re not sick or anything, 
Gerry?” Elizabeth asked as they snuggled 
down under the coverlet that night after the 
ride. “ Father is worried about you.” 

“ Never felt better in my life,” yawned 
Gerry, turning over on her side. For though 
the root of her trouble had not been by any 
means removed, the comfort of the staunch 
friends she had received that night revived her 
spirits and that week she looked so much better 
that her family and friends breathed freely 
again. 


Gerry Pours Tea 151 

It was just a bit timidly, however, that she 
took her place on the day of the Sewell tea at 
one end of the long dining-table so prettily 
decorated with larkspur and pink roses. Its 
rows of shining silver were laid out with formal 
precision, its monogrammed napkins piled high 
above the lace medallions of the rich embroid- 
ered cloth; the blue flame of the alcohol sput- 
tered merrily under the brass teapot before 
her. Gerry’s heart fluttered with it at the ex- 
citement. 

Adine had instructed her in the few simple 
rules of tea pouring, how to keep plenty of hot 
water handy to weaken it for those who did 
not like it strong, how the old Lowestoft teapot 
must be kept free from weak grounds, how 
dregs must be disposed of in the waste bowl 
before a fresh cup was poured. 

Gerry listened, fascinated. “ Oh, Adine, I 
just adore formal things like this; they always 
seem so partyish, don’t they? ” 

“ Not any more than your Willow Tree 
party,” said Adine, taking her place at the 
other end of the table where a duplicate tea 
service was placed before her. She was think- 
ing how pretty Gerry looked in her soft blue 


152 The Little Cockalorum 

Georgette crepe with its flowing sleeves, the 
blue just matching the larkspur in the center 
of the table. 

“ Aunt Geraldine was going to give a tea 
in her apartment for me, but she sent me home 
before it happened,” giggled Gerry. “ I got 
cheated out of the experience.” 

“ I’ll send you home before it has happened 
too, if you spill that cream balancing on the 
edge of the table,” warned Adine. Then, 
“ Have you heard from your aunt since you 
came home? ” 

“ Not a word. I wrote her a nice long bread 
and butter letter, but I guess she’s disap- 
pointed in me, or maybe just too busy to 
bother.” Then their conversation stopped, for 
Mrs. Sewell approached with what was evi- 
dently the guest of honor, a tall, angular 
woman with glasses that did not seem to do her 
much good, for she kept poking her head for- 
ward as if to see better. Gerry decided with 
characteristic promptness that she did not like 
her very well, though like the old rhyme about 
Dr. F ell the reason she could hardly tell. She 
was so secretly ashamed of this unreasonable 
antipathy, however, that she made a special 


Gerry Pours Tea 153 

effort to be nice to Mrs. Bigbee, as the lady 
was introduced. 

But she did not have time to think or to be 
cordial, for the guests began to come as it 
seemed to Gerry all at once, and everyone 
wanted tea. It kept her busy for the next half 
hour until they had scattered and were off in 
little groups chattering and laughing. Gerry, 
relaxing for a few minutes, looked about her. 
She loved the quiet bustle of it all, the mingled 
odors of fine perfumes, the beautiful blending 
of the colors in the women’s afternoon gowns 
against the background of the Sewells’ walnut 
paneled dining-room. Oh, how she wished she 
had money so she could fix up their house as it 
should be, so that Elizabeth would not have to 
work so hard over the old makeshifts, so they 
could all have pretty clothes, and give teas like 
this, and know interesting people 

“ — so I came down to see what I could find 
for them. Horribly rich, you know, willing to 
pay anything for a real antique.” Gerry had a 
queer feeling she had heard the rather high- 
pitched voice behind her before. She could 
hear it saying, “Ten, twelve, twenty!” It 
was the mysterious voice of the auction. Turn- 


154 The Little Cockalorum 

ing she saw Mrs. Bigbee talking to one of the 
other guests seated on the window-seat behind 
her. 

“ It must be rather fun bargaining with 
these country folks,” remarked the other 
woman’s voice, in a much lower key. 

“ My dear, it is a scream! You’ve no idea 
how ignorant they are. They will go out and 
pay thirty or forty dollars for a shiny oak side- 
board, and then let me have for fifty cents a 
real, solid, mahogany tilt-top table that only 
needs a bit of oil and a new hinge to make it 
worth fifty dollars.” 

“ You don’t mean it! ” exclaimed the other 
voice. 

“ I most certainly do. Why, they even give 
me things at times if I can make them feel I 
haven’t the slightest interest in them, and I 
have picked treasures out of their trash bar- 
rels. Of course they are getting better in- 
formed about what they have, but you might 
say the whole antique business is based on not 
letting them know what treasures they are hid- 
ing in their attics.” 

“ But I thought most antiques were made 
in the shops, and just chipped off and given a 


Gerry Pours Tea 155 

few worm-holes to make them look old,” ob- 
jected the other woman. 

“ Oh, sometimes we have to take imitations 
when we can't find the real thing, and really 
the fakes are quite good; only an expert can 
tell what they are. But they cost, my dear, 
with labor and materials so high, while I can 
come up in this part of the country and poke 
around and pick things up dirt cheap. That’s 
what I’m here for now,” lowering her voice, 
“ though, of course, I’m not telling it to every- 
body. I need a Napoleon sleigh-bed for one 

thing ” The voices dropped lower and 

lower, and Gerry could hear no more. 

A picture had flashed into her mind of a 
call she and Aunt Geraldine had made in New 
York to a decorator’s studio. Even in the few 
minutes she had spent there with the gracious, 
well-bred woman whose business it was to 
make other people’s homes beautiful, Gerry 
had been impressed by the exquisite things 
around her, the glass-framed mirror on one 
wall, the huge velvety chairs, the dull gleam of 
old mahogany under the soft glow of fairy 
lamps, the lengths of gorgeous silks draped in 
studied carelessness over carved tables and 


156 The Little Cockalorum 

chairs. She remembered the familiar look of a 
certain old mahogany secretary and a clock 
like those in the living-room at home. But in 
the excitement of shopping afterward she had 
given the call no further thought. Now it all 
came back to her again with the conversation 
she had overheard. She could hardly believe 
that anyone who dealt with such beautiful 
things as those in that studio could be so hard 
and mercenary as this Mrs. Bigbee. 

Her cheeks were burning as she deftly added 
a thin slice of lemon to a cup of amber tea and 
handed it to a waiting guest with a smile. Her 
keen sense of justice was outraged by the view- 
point of Mrs. Bigbee. She knew she had rea- 
son for not liking her on first sight. Think of 
the poor country people giving up their treas- 
ures — and then an idea struck her. Treasures ! 
Why, their own house must be a treasure heap, 
a veritable Arabian Night’s cave for an an- 
tique hunter like Mrs. Bigbee. And if old 
mahogany and brass were worth so much to 
her, why couldn’t the Houstons turn them to 
money as well? 

She could hardly wait until the tea was over 
so she could get away to think this over. Why, 


Gerry Pours Tea 157 

it would be like digging up Captain Kidd’s 
chest in their potato patch to be able to sell 
off some of the broken old things in the attic to 
an honest collector who would give them what 
the things were worth. 

Gerry’s heart beat fast as she poured more 
tea, and chatted with the people whom she 
knew. When the last of the guests had gone, 
Mrs. Sewell tried to persuade her to stay for 
dinner, but pleading a headache which was in- 
deed true, she left for home and solitude where 
she could play with her Idea as she wrote it in 
her mind with a capital I. 

That night she dreamed that her old walnut 
bureau had become human and that it jingled 
gold pieces as it talked, and that the brass and- 
irons in the living-room fireplace had suddenly 
begun to peel greenbacks which she patiently 
pasted together with a paste made from old 
tea leaves. 


CHAPTER X 


HAUNTED? 

The Beautiful Idea, as she began to call it 
to herself, moved Gerry to ask Dr. Honeywell 
for a leave of absence the next day. Charac- 
teristically she did not tell him what she had 
in her mind, except that she had some work to 
do which might keep her busy all summer or 
might possibly peter out at the end of the 
week. 

He smiled indulgently at her reticence and 
her enthusiasm and told her to take all the time 
she would need, offering to help if she got in 
a tight place. Gerry left him cutting the 
pages of a new book on china, which had come 
in his morning’s mail, in his study, now or- 
derly, clean, and restful. 

At least, she thought to herself as she waited 
for the trolley to take her back to Oxford, she 
had done a lot to make the dear old man com- 
fortable, and if, to carry out her Beautiful 
158 


Haunted f 


i59 

Idea, she would have to leave him entirely, her 
conscience would be easy. Hattie could keep 
him clean and neat, and all he would really 
miss her — Gerry — for, would be her compan- 
ionship. 

With a start she realized she must have 
been waiting on the corner for almost half an 
hour. The trolley had evidently been blocked 
somewhere. The day was not too hot for a 
ramble; the vista at the end of the street 
showed alluring woods ahead. She would 
walk back home as she had the first time she 
came to Torybridge. 

So she started out with her head high and 
her arms swinging as one of the boys in the 
service had told her they were taught to do to 
make their walking easier. The first half of 
the way was delightful. She felt as if she had 
been playing truant from school. She stopped 
to gather the first few plumes of goldenrod 
along the way, investigated a terrible squawk- 
ing in a wayside chickenyard and frightened 
off a prowling cat, accepted a lift from a nice 
looking girl in a rickety roadster who dropped 
her at the next crossroads, and suddenly de- 
cided that she was very tired, very hot, very 


160 Lhe Little Cockalorum 

thirsty, and that her heels were rubbed to blis- 
ters. 

The river road to Oxford rumbles by way of 
loose-plank bridges over many small streams 
that trickle their way to the river. At the next 
stream Gerry vowed she would stop to cool off. 
She found it a secluded little spot, shaded with 
fine old trees, the clear spring water flowing 
slowly over large flat stones. Sliding down 
the embankment from the road she wandered 
beside the stream under the trees until a bend 
took her entirely out of sight of the road. 
With a sigh of content she sank down to rest 
and cool off. 

Soon her feet slipped out of the hot oxfords, 
then she straightened the wrinkles in the heels 
of her stockings that had done the mischief and 
made the blisters. Then she eyed the cool, rip- 
pling water, glassy as ice, with a wish in her 
eyes. It was too much. She forgot that she 
was seventeen, that she was soon to be a busi- 
ness woman if her Beautiful Idea worked out, 
and a serious college girl after that. Tucking 
her white linen skirt an inch or two higher un- 
der her belt she pulled off her stockings and 
waded to her heart’s content. 


Haunted ? 


161 

Oh, it was delicious to feel the cool water 
sliding over her hot feet. The sun came 
through the thick branches of the trees just 
enough to dapple the shadows and throw a 
cool green light over all. The artist in Gerry 
responded to the beauty and peace of the scene, 
the adventurer in her made her want to investi- 
gate further up the delightful little stream. 
So she hung her stockings about her neck, tied 
the laces of her shoes together and threw them 
over her shoulders, and picked her way along 
over the watery stones. As she advanced 
deeper into the woods, the sounds from the 
road, the rumble of the wagons, the honking of 
motor horns, grew further and further away. 
Soon they stopped altogether. Then the 
twittering of birds, the rustling of leaves, the 
trickling of water, became louder. Gerry was 
quite in the beauty of it all. 

On and on she went. She knew she could 
not get lost with the stream to guide her back 
to the road. This would be her one holiday of 
the summer. To-morrow she would have to 
work again, very, very hard if she was going 
to do all she had intended. She enjoyed her- 
self to the full. She even threw herself down 


162 *Ihe Little Cockalorum 


on a mossy bank for she did not know how 
long. Then she went on following the stream 
in search of — what? 

As the thought occurred to her that she had 
been a long time in the woods without any 
signs of life or habitation, the stream shot out 
suddenly into a broad sunny meadow. Beside 
the meadow was a low hill, and on top of the 
hill stood a bleak weather-beaten house. 

The Webster house! Gerry had no idea she 
had wandered so near home. Evidently the 
little stream must have twisted its way parallel 
to the road, for often on their Sunday walks, 
the Houstons had seen the house standing 
alone upon its hill. It had been deserted now 
for years, the last Webster having shut it up 
to go off and live in Paris with his French wife. 
Folks often wondered why he had not sold the 
house and its furnishings, for that it was full 
of beautiful old things was part of the story. 
But Jacob Webster always said he wanted it 
left as it was in case he ever wanted to come 
back to his own country to live — or to die. 
And so it stood, its windows barred against the 
cold north winds of winter, and shuttered 
against the hot summer rays that would fade 


Haunted f 


163 

the beautiful damasks and rugs that were said 
to be inside. 

Some of the people who lived near the house 
on the hill even went so far as to say it was 
haunted, though Mr. Houston smiled and said 
this was said about every deserted house. If 
it was haunted by anything, he would say in 
his easy, reassuring way, it would be by the 
memories of the good times that used to go 
on there years ago, when Jacob Webster was 
a very young man. 

In the early afternoon sun it looked even 
worse than on a gray winter’s day, Gerry de- 
cided, as she stood at the edge of the brook 
looking up at its forbidding windows. What 
a shame to shut up such a beautiful old house 
to decay like that ! 

And then she saw what she had not noticed 
before, that a huge black cloud was rising in 
the west and a thunder-storm was due almost 
any minute. She decided to find a short cut 
home and sat down to put on her shoes and 
stockings. But this was not so easy. Her 
feet, swollen with heat and walking through 
the water so long, would not go into her shoes. 
She tugged and pulled but no use! 


164 The Little Cockalorum 

The clouds were gathering very fast now, 
the sun had disappeared under the big black 
one. Thunder growled, and a few big rain- 
drops fell on her hands. Carrying her shoes 
she rushed up the hill to the portico of the old 
house for shelter. She had just reached a 
small wing at the back of the house when the 
storm broke. 

There was a window in this wing open, and 
through it Gerry climbed and drew it shut with 
a sigh of relief. It did not strike her until 
then that it was curious that the window should 
be open when all the others had their shutters 
securely bowed. She dismissed her fears by 
deciding they had probably been blown open 
in some heavy storm and the neighbors had 
been too scared to come and shut them. But 
a storm could not blow open a heavy window 
like this, whatever it might do to the shut- 
ters. 

At this thought, Gerry looked around un- 
easily. The dim light from the window showed 
her she was in a small study, furnished with 
massive old furniture, the walls lined with 
books. It must have been a beautiful room 
once, she thought, as she examined the heavy 


Haunted f 165 

red damask curtains that still hung at the win- 
dow. 

But who could have opened that window? 
Tramps? If they had they would have done 
some damage to this place, surely, have carried 
off that carved ivory paper knife or the old 
silver ink-well lying in full sight on top of the 
mahogany desk. Maybe Jacob Webster was 
coming back and someone had come in to air 
the house or clean. Then she remembered she 
had heard something about his being in New 
York, and that he was going to sell the house, 
furniture and all. Maybe Jacob himself — but 
at this she laughed. He would walk in by his 
own front door, surely. 

Outside the thunder and lightning was still 
behaving badly. One sharp flash that seemed 
to strike the tree in front of the house made 
Gerry move back cautiously from the window. 
She did not want to venture too far into the 
dark house, so she sank into the depths of the 
old leather chair opposite a long panel mirror 
that reflected the tall rounded doorway into 
the hall. 

To the refrain of the rain against the win- 
dows she fell to dreaming of the life that this 


166 “The Little Cockalorum 

musty old house must have seen in its day. 
She could picture Jacob Webster’s father sit- 
ting importantly at that desk, with his white 
side whiskers and gold-rimmed glasses on a 
gold chain, tapping the desk with those glasses 
while he listened to young Jacob stammer out 
that he was going to marry the gay little 
French girl on his arm. There would have 
been a big party perhaps, to which the little 
French girl had been bidden. Some of them 
would be waiting out there in the hall to see 
how Jacob’s interview would come out. 
Would old Jacob say yes? Jacob’s mother 
would be waiting on the stairs, hoping her hus- 
band would be lenient with the boy. 

There was a flash of lightning at this point 
in Gerry’s wild imaginings. It lit up, through 
the mirror, the vista of the hall, the white pan- 
eling and curving mahogany rail of the stairs, 
and — Gerry’s heart turned to ice — the face 
that peered over the stair rail. Gerry 
screamed. There was a tinkle of glass, a clat- 
ter of falling metal, a swishing of skirts, and 
silence. Gerry was not superstitious, but this 
was too much. Her feet seemed like lead as 
she moved to the window, opened it, and 


Haunted f 


167 

dropped out into the pouring rain. She was 
still in her stocking feet, and she couldn’t go 
home that way, and she couldn’t go back again 
into that terrible house. What should she do? 

About fifty feet across the dripping lawn, 
now a tangle of weeds, stood a rustic garden 
house, really topping the hill. If she could get 
to this ! So pulling her skirt over her head she 
made a dash for its shelter, and arrived breath- 
less and still trembling from her adventure. 

Of course it was her imagination, she argued 
to herself, as she sat half hidden and protected 
from the rain by a lacework of old vines, now 
killed by many frosts. She had been picturing 
the happenings in that old room so vividly that 
when the lightning lit up the stairs in the hall, 
the face her brain had pictured simply trans- 
ferred itself to the glass. 

But the noise! Her imagination could not 
have made that. It sounded as if the tall brass 
and crystal candlestick she had noticed on the 
mantel in the study had been dropped on the 
stairs and bumped down a couple of steps. 
Still, the wind or the lightning might have had 
something to do with the noise. But it couldn’t 
have made that unmistakable sound of a 


168 The Little Cockalorum 

woman’s skirts, taffeta skirts, brushing against 
the balustrades as if their owner were hurrying 
and had lost her way in the dark. Gerry’s heart 
went racing away again at the thought. She 
had not imagined it all, she knew she hadn’t. 
And there had been only one brass and crystal 
candlestick on one end of the mantel in that 
very perfect room! 

The storm had about passed over now. 
Gerry peered through the network of vines at 
the old house caught in a sudden blinding flash 
of afternoon sunlight against the black sky of 
the storm to the east. It did not look so vil- 
lainous now. She could almost begin to laugh 
at her experience. Should she tell it at home? 
And then as she looked, a figure came to the 
open window, stepped out rather gingerly on 
the wet ground beneath, pulled the window 
down, bowed the spread shutters, shook its 
taffeta skirts, and turning, faced Gerry hidden 
in her retreat. 

It was Mrs. Bigbee! 


CHAPTER XI 


OPEN SESAME 

“Where’s Father?” Gerry exploded, as 
she took her seat at the breakfast table two 
mornings later. 

“ In the Roost; he was out early this morn- 
ing,” answered Elizabeth, putting a square of 
evenly browned toast on Gerry’s plate. 
“ Why? ” she added, as she saw the excited 
snap of Gerry’s eyes and the rapidity with 
which she attacked her toast. 

“ Oh, nothing,” Gerry tried to answer care- 
lessly. “ Just wanted to ask him something, 
that’s all.” 

Mr. Houston was giving particular atten- 
tion just then to the study of early morning 
light effects, and started out at dawn every 
day with his sketch-box under his arm, coming 
home in time for breakfast with wet feet but 
the result of his labors secure in its grooves in 
the lid of his box. 

Strangely beautiful were these little 
169 


170 The Little Cockalorum 

sketches, so different from his usual brilliant 
color effects, but glowing with color, too, in a 
more subdued way. “ Like an opal,” Gerry 
said, “ as though the color were there, back of 
the gray film, ready to break through.” 

Elizabeth was not so appreciative of his la- 
bors. To her it meant only wet feet and more 
paint stains to clean from his clothes before 
she pressed them. 

Pausing on her way to the kitchen with her 
hands full of Ted’s dishes, who by that time 
was off on urgent business of his own, she be- 
gan slowly, “ Gerry, I don’t think you ought 
to worry Father so about college. After all, 
what’s the use? We’re poor, and people like 
us don’t go to college, that’s all.” 

Gerry stared, her cup of coffee half-way to 
her lips. 

“ Elizabeth Houston,” she gasped, “ I’m al- 
most ashamed of you! How do you suppose 
families ever get money or rise above being 
plain poor if someone doesn’t have enough am- 
bition to go ahead and do something? Do you 
suppose we can live forever on the tiny in- 
come Father gets every month? To tell you 
the truth, I don’t see how we do it now! ” 


Open Sesame 171 

“We don’t, half the time,” answered Eliza- 
beth ruefully. 

“ And yet you don’t want me to push ahead 
and pull the Houston family along with me. 
Someone has to, you know. We can’t wait for 
Ted, and Father — well. I’ve given up hope 
that he’ll ever see anything beyond his beauti- 
ful pictures.” 

“ That’s just it,” Elizabeth put in eagerly, 
“ he won’t and we know he can’t. And that’s 
why I hate to see you bothering him about 
college so much when it seems so hope- 
less.” 

Gerry folded her napkin slowly but her eyes 
smouldered. “ Betty, dear,” she said, “ I 
would be the last one in the world to worry 
Daddy. I’m not asking him to help me, only 
to let me help myself. Now then don’t fuss 
any more about it. Just think up some of the 
good things you are going to pack in my boxes 
next year at college, for I have an idea, a beau- 
tiful, beautiful idea,” and she went humming 
through the garden to find her father. 

Mr. Houston did not hear her at first as she 
came up the ladder, for he was engaged in the 
business of cleaning his brushes, a bit of work 


172 The Little Cockalorum 

he seemed to particularly enjoy, rubbing them 
on the bar of strong-smelling soap, and rinsing 
them in warm water. 

“ Good-morning, Daddy, have you used 
Pear's soap? ” called Gerry's clear voice be- 
hind him. Mr. Houston turned and smiling 
held out his arms for the bear hug with which 
this exuberant daughter of his usually greeted 
him. 

“What’s the latest?” Gerry asked, seeing 
that he had a large canvas on his easel. 

“ Oh, something new I am trying out, just 
a little fantastic composition that occurred to 
me the night you gave your Willow Tree pan- 
tomime. That was a very beautiful bit of 
w T ork, daughter; you have the artistic eye, even 
if your hands are wilfully stubborn.” Mr. 
Houston stepped back a few steps from his 
easel and squinted at his work through half 
closed eyes. “ A night scene like that is a bit 
out of my usual style, but Miss Merrill sug- 
gested it and I think I got her idea.” 

“ Isn’t she a wonder, Father? ” Gerry ex- 
claimed delightedly. “ She really helped me 
with the pantomime, too. Why don't you ask 
her over to see it when it is finished? ” 


Open Sesame 1 73 

“ If I thought she would care ” Mr. 

Houston hesitated. 

“ I’ll ask her for you,” volunteered Gerry. 
“ She knows so many artists and editors and 

people in New York maybe she ” then 

Gerry stopped. She was on the old forbidden 
subject again. Just so must her practical 
mother have stopped time and time again at 
the futility of trying to persuade her lovable 
but impractical husband to use his art to fill 
the family coffers. 

Mr. Houston was silent. Abstractedly he 
selected a brush from the dozen or so that 
bristled from the old brown earthenware jar at 
his side. He dabbled delicately, but with a 
surety of touch, with his paint-stained fingers 
for several minutes. Then he stopped, ripped 
open a flattened tube of paint with his knife, 
and carefully scraping out the small amount 
of paint inside said, “ That’s the last bit of 
Cobalt I have and those supplies from Queen’s 
haven’t come yet.” 

Gerry watched him fascinated, hardly dar- 
ing to interrupt the swift strokes that were 
miraculously turning the canvas to two tall 
cedars outlined against a moonlit sky. 


174 7 /k hit tie Cockalorum 

But the morning was going, and she had 
work to do herself. “ Father, 1 ” she began, 
“ would you care if I sold some of the old 
things we have in the house? I have an 
idea ” 

Mr. Houston laid down his palette slowly. 
“ Well, Gerry, I hardly think that is neces- 
sary ; we aren’t that badly off yet, you know.” 

“ But, Father, don’t you understand? It is 
for the money, the money I need for college. 
We have a lot of old things up in the attic 
that we never use; some of them need fixing 
up, and I have reason to know we can sell them 
for antiques. Of course I wouldn’t want to 
do it without asking you, for they’re yours 
even if they are not much more than junk.” 

Her father smiled. “ I’m afraid my little 
cockalorum has crowed herself in pretty deep 
this time. I have no objection to your selling 
any of the old stuff that you can, dear, but I 
must see what you select. There might be 
some things, you know ” 

“ Oh, of course, of course, Daddy,” cried 
Gerry, “ you shall see everything. And you’ll 
help us with it too, and tell us what to do with 
it and how to fix it.” 


Open Sesame 


1 75 


“Us?” 

“ Yes, Ted and I. He hasn’t anything to 

do but fuss with that old wireless ” 

“ Has he agreed to help you? ” 

Gerry’s laughter pealed out loud and merry. 
“ He doesn’t even know it yet, but he will. 
Now good-bye, for a while, Daddy, I’m going 
foraging in the attic. I feel like Robinson 
Crusoe, Christopher Columbus, and Ali Baba 
all rolled into one. Here’s where the Houston 
family gets shoved on Easy Street,” and she 
disappeared down the ladder waving her hand 
merrily as she went. 

But half-way down the ladder she stopped 
and turned back. “ Father,” she said, her eyes 
on the level with the studio floor, “ were you 
ever in the old Webster house? ” 

“ Once a long, long time ago, just before 
Jacob went abroad. That reminds me, I hear 
he is back in this country and is going to sell 
out. Too bad, for there are some very fine 
treasures in that place. I suppose some dealer 
or auctioneer will come along and offer him a 
lump sum for the whole thing, or else he will 
sell house and furniture together. The house 
needs a lot of repairing but it would make a 


176 The Little Cockalorum 

fine summer estate. But what made you ask 
me, Gerry? ” 

“ Nothing, that is nothing much. But I was 
just curious to know if you remembered two 
old prism candlesticks on the mantel in the 
stud — in that house? I — heard there was a 
beautiful old candlestick there.” 

“Heavens, what a question! Jacob had 
more than one pair of fine old candlesticks, I 
am sure, things that dealers would like to get 
their hands on. They’ll probably swarm 
here when they find he has decided to sell 
out.” 

“ But would they try to get into the house 
beforehand — I mean would there be any ad- 
vantage in their seeing what the house held be- 
fore a public sale? ” 

Mr. Houston seemed to consider this for a 
moment. “ I don’t know that there would be 
any advantage, unless they were looking for 
some special piece of furniture and were afraid 
someone would hold back on them.” 

“ A Napoleon sleigh-bed, for instance, or a 
pair of prism candlesticks,” said Gerry. 

“ What?” 

“ Oh, nothing,” called Gerry, as she hurried 


Open Sesame 177 

down the ladder. More and more she knew 
she had reason to distrust this Mrs. Bighee, 
and she resolved, as she made her way to the 
attic, that this unscrupulous dealer would not 
have a chance to look over her treasures — if 
she had any. 

The Houston attic was typical of many an 
old house in that part of the country. There 
was more than one room in it. The top of the 
stairs that led from the narrow back hall 
opened into a large raftered room where the 
methodical Elizabeth stored their winter 
clothes, where trunks and boxes and discarded 
furniture usually rested. Gerry loved the 
smell of the hot wood. The memories of the 
good times they used to have there not so many 
years ago came back to her, the long rainy 
days when they ransacked the old trunks for 
clothes and gave elaborate fairy-tale plays 
with the dripping of rain from the eaves as 
orchestra. Even then she used to play she was 
at college and that these theatricals were part 
of her college career. It was a little imaginary 
life she used to like, not saying much about 
it to her family and the other children, but go- 
ing over it to herself at nights before she went 


178 The Li tile Cockalorum 

to sleep, or during quiet hours when they 
thought she was reading. 

In one corner a pile of old carpet and pil- 
lows had been pulled up beside a low window. 
A dried-up apple-core beside an old book, face 
downward, showed it to be Gerry’s favorite 
reading spot. She had forgotten it completely 
in the busy summer weeks that had sped by. 
It seemed a long time, looking back, to the 
days when she could steal away with her book, 
and forget, for hours at a stretch, the world she 
lived in for the world of a by-gone age. She 
was living out her own story now, she thought, 
as she turned the knob of a small door leading 
into the front room of the attic and found it 
locked. She rattled and shook it but the door 
did not yield. Elizabeth hearing the racket 
poked her head above the stairs. 

“What on earth!” she exclaimed. “I 
thought you had gone to the doctor’s long 
ago.” 

“ I’m not going,” said Gerry. “ Chucked 
my job yesterday. I’ve turned second-hand 
man.” 

It took some time for Gerry to get it into 
Elizabeth’s head what she intended to do with 


Open Sesame 1 79 

the old furniture lying behind the locked 
door. 

“ I don’t see what you locked it for, any- 
way,” she complained. “ I’ve tried ‘Open Ses- 
ame ’ and ‘ Abacadabra ’ and everything else 
but it won’t budge.” 

“ Well, when I houseeleaned this spring, the 
old things looked so bad standing all over here, 
that I gathered them all together and put them 
into the Dark Hole of Calcutta,” — they had 
called the windowless room that in childhood 
— “ and locked it up and tried to forget it. I 
get so tired of seeing old broken furniture 

around the house ” Elizabeth’s voice 

shook. 

“ Never mind, Betty, we’re going to get that 
old furniture out into the daylight and soon 
you’ll never see it any more. Now if you could 
only find that key ” 

Elizabeth went down-stairs to look for it. 
Gerry waited, poking around on a voyage of 
discovery among the dark shadows cast by the 
sloping roof. Then suddenly she remembered. 
Their hiding hole! She had not gone through 
it for years. She had discovered it long ago 
in an exciting game of hide-and-seek, by a 


180 The Little Cockalorum 

small door between the heavy wooden beams 
on one sloping wall that was hidden behind a 
huge trunk. She sought it now, and it opened 
stiffly, creaking on rusty hinges. Before her 
yawned the dark passageway that led, as she 
remembered, around the three sides of the at- 
tic, a refuge for spies in Revolutionary days, 
she had learned. She had told of her discovery 
to no one but Adine, and often the pair of 
them had hidden for what had seemed like 
hours in the dark hiding hole in order to out- 
wit the others. It would be fun to explore it 
again. Lighting her candle she ventured in, 
treading cautiously over the old boards. A 
flight of swallows disturbed in the eaves out- 
side rustled and whirred away. Gerry’s heart 
stood still for a second, for she thought them 
bats. But reassured she proceeded on her 
way. There was another little door she half 
remembered to the Dark Hole of Calcutta. 
One day she and Adine had escaped that way. 
Feeling along the wall as she went she arrived 
at about the point where the door should have 
been. She could see its outline by the flicker- 
ing ray of her candle. She threw her weight 
against it; the door gave an inch and then 


Open Sesame 181 

stopped dead. Investigating Gerry found 
that someone, probably Elizabeth, had pushed 
some huge piece of furniture up against it. 
Her little private entrance to the other room 
was barred. 

With a sigh she turned to retrace her steps 
and wait for Elizabeth’s key to let her in by 
the other door. But a tricky little gust of air 
that wandered in somehow took it upon itself 
just then to blow out the flame of her candle. 
Gerry was in utter darkness and her matches 
were lying inside on the attic trunk. It was 
ridiculous, she told herself, to feel so panicky 
at being caught in this dark passageway. She 
merely had to feel her way along the inner 
wall until she reached the other small door that 
she had just crawled through. But the small 
door was not to be found in the dark. It had 
blown shut after her and the secret spring 
latch had snapped shut. Gerry was trapped. 

At first she tried to treat it like a joke, for 
it was funny to be locked up in her own home, 
and besides Elizabeth would be there any min- 
ute with the key. So she waited, and while she 
waited she groped back along the passageway 
to the other door, thinking that she might push 


182 The Little Cockalorum 

it in by the sheer weight of her body. And so 
she did not see Elizabeth come into the back 
room of the attic to look for her and give her 
the key to the Dark Hole of Calcutta. 

Elizabeth, not finding her, had gone away 
again, thinking Gerry had slipped off on one 
of her impulsive visits or errands. Her fa- 
ther, and Ted with him, had gone away with 
some sandwiches in their pockets to a delight- 
ful little island up the river on a long-promised 
fishing trip. Gerry did not appear for lunch 
and Elizabeth betook herself and her sewing 
over to Aunt Letty’s for the afternoon. 

So poor Gerry, having called and pounded 
herself almost sick, began to realize that she 
was truly locked up in the secret passage. It 
was terribly hot and close when the afternoon 
sun struck that side of the house. She could 
not stand upright, as a lump on the top of her 
head testified. She had picked up a few 
splinters in her frantic search for the door. 
She had heard of people smothering in traps 
like this. Her heart sank at the thought of 
spending the night here, but surely they would 
miss her before that. Supposing, though, they 
thought she had gone to Sewells’ or changed 


Open Sesame 1 83 

her mind and gone to Dr. Honeywell’s. She 
shuddered at the prospect. 

She must get out somehow. Maybe if she 
had the courage to explore the third side of 
the passage she would find a way out. So she 
crawled carefully along on her hands and 
knees, disturbed a nest of swallows as she 
passed the chimney that led down into the liv- 
ing-room, took up her courage again and went 
a few feet farther. 

Bump! Gerry’s heart stood still. She fell 
back on her heels holding another bump on her 
forehead, her legs trembling from the shock. 
Then she laughed half hysterically, and pro- 
ceeded to investigate with her fingers what had 
stopped her progress so abruptly. 

A claw, a wooden claw holding a ball in its 
grasp, another, then another! Gerry’s fingers 
wandered up a carved column of wood and 
struck a large surface, satiny smooth beneath 
the dust that covered it. The smooth surface 
ended at what seemed to be a rounded edge in 
a raised and scalloped border. Could it be a 
pie-crust table hidden here in their secret pas- 
sage! 

If her candle had not blown out! Gerry’s 


184 The Little Cockalorum 

fears had entirely disappeared at her discov- 
ery, and she forgot that if her candle had not 
gone out she would probably not have found 
what promised to be a real treasure. Half 
stumbling and crawling, she carried and 
pushed her treasure back past the chimney, 
around the corner, to the side of the house 
where the door must be. 

Then a few feet ahead of her she caught 
sight of a tiny shaft of light. It was a crack 
where roofing and floor did not quite meet. 
Spreading her blue serge skirt on the floor she 
pillowed her head on her arms and breathed 
air through the few inches of daylight. It was 
hot, but fresh. The summer afternoon 
drowsed itself away. Gerry Houston lay 
sound asleep on the floor of her hiding hole, 
with a dusty old pie-crust table standing guard 
beside her. 

Gerry’s movements were so spasmodic that 
even when she did not appear for supper her 
family were only slightly disturbed. 

“ Probably at Sewells’,” said Ted. “ Gee, 
she’s lucky! No one ever invites me out for 
supper.” 

“ But she should tell you, Elizabeth, when 


Open Sesame 185 

she is going to stay away like this,” Mr. Hous- 
ton protested gently. 

Elizabeth agreed with him. “ It’s funny. 
She started to the attic before lunch to get 
some of the old furniture out of the Dark Hole 
and I left her there while I went to find the 
key. When I came back she had gone, and I 
haven’t seen her since. Aunt Letty was on the 
porch all afternoon and she would have seen 
her go out, I know. Gerry’s a regular ” 

“ Flea,” supplied Ted. “ Can’t ever put 
your finger on her. Can I have her dish of 
pudding, Elizabeth? ” 

But they did worry when Russell England 
stopped with Adine and Dave in his car to 
take Gerry to a dance Bob Schofield was giv- 
ing in his father’s huge barn. 

“ She promised me faithfully yesterday,” 
Adine was saying, “ that she’d be ready at 
seven-thirty sharp. What do you suppose she 
is up to? ”’ 

“ Blow your horn, Rusty, maybe Bo-Peep 
has fallen asleep in her pasture yonder,” sug- 
gested Dave. So Russell honked his familiar 
one long and two short toots, but no Gerry. 

“ This is serious,” said Mr. Houston who 


186 The Little Cockalorum 

had come out to join the group at the gate. 
“ Elizabeth tells me she disappeared from the 

attic this morning almost like magic ” 

“ As if the floor had opened right up and 
swallowed her,” added the excited Elizabeth. 

Then Adine, who had seemed as worried as 
the rest, suddenly burst into laughter. 

“ What’s the joke? Might let us in on it,” 
complained Russ. But Adine only asked him 
for his pocket flash, and taking Elizabeth by 
the hand, pulled her into the house. As they 
mounted the attic stairs a dull thumping met 
their ears. “ I knew it, I knew it,” cried 
Adine, half crying and half laughing. Then 
she was on her knees behind the big trunk, and 
was working at a hole no larger than a dime in 
the wood of the wall. Elizabeth watched her 
as if in a trance. The others began to crowd 
up the narrow stairs. The wall opened, Adine 
flashed her light and dragged out a dirty, di- 
sheveled Gerry. 

“ Ye gods and little submarines,” ejaculated 
Russ. “ What has the child been doing now, 
playing hide-and-seek with herself? ” 

44 Hush,” whispered Dave, with a hand on 
his arm , 44 she’s all in, poor kid! ” 


Open Sesame 187 

And so she was. Her legs from being so 
long cramped up in the narrow passage would 
hardly support her down the stairs. Her head 
thumped from the heat and bruise. She was 
hungry and worn out from trying to make 
them hear her. On the bottom step she sat 
down and cried and laughed hysterically. 

“ I’ll stay,” whispered Adine; “ you boys go 
on to Schofields’ and tell them why we can’t 
come.” 

Together she and Elizabeth got the excited 
Gerry to bed. 

“ Gerry, dear, what were you trying to do 
anyway? ” she asked, when Gerry, more com- 
fortable after Elizabeth’s supper, lay stretched 
between cool sheets. 

“ Playing Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. 
I got in and I couldn’t get out, only I didn’t 
throw you all into the jars of oil,” and she 
threw a warning glance at Elizabeth, for she 
was not ready to let Adine know her plans. 

But later in the evening, when Elizabeth 
had gone down-stairs about some household 
duties, a chance reference of Adine’s to Mrs. 
Bigbee brought the whole story out, and Gerry 
poured it into Adine’s sympathetic ears. 


CHAPTER XII 


MISS MERRILL BREAKS A RESOLUTION 

As the August days dragged on strange 
sounds issued from the Houston barn. To 
Miss Merrill, sitting at her desk in Aunt 
Letty’s spare room and looking down over the 
tangled garden of her neighbors, the comings 
and goings between the Houston house and 
barn were at first mysterious. Ted would ap- 
pear with his arms full of what looked like 
knock-down furniture. Then Gerry in an old 
smock of her father’s, carrying cans of what 
might have been paint or varnish. Dull ham- 
merings would break the morning stillness, 
then the unmistakable sound of someone rub- 
bing down wood with sandpaper. 

Occasionally Gerry would stop on her way 
back from the barn and wave to Miss Merrill, 
or call something about its being too beautiful 
a day to stay indoors. But she did not share 
her secret with anyone, and Miss Merrill would 
not have known what was going on if it had 
188 


Miss Merrill Breaks a Resolution 189 

not been for Elizabeth and the active tongue 
of Aunt Letty Wilcox. 

“ I declare, that child has more energy in 
her little finger than I have in my whole body,” 
she said one morning while she was making 
Miss Merrill's bed. They had both watched 
Gerry carrying, unaided, a bulky chair across 
the garden to the open barn door. 

“What on earth is she doing now?” Miss 
Merrill asked as she sorted out some papers 
preparatory to her day's work at her type- 
writer. 

“ Goodness only knows. ’Lizabeth says 
she’s got a notion she can sell some old trash 
they got up in their attic and get that money 
she wants for college that way. Land alive, 
if she works as hard at college as she does get- 
ting there, there won't be any holding her; 
she'll be turning around and teaching the pro- 
fessors before she’s finished.” 

Miss Merrill smiled. She loved Aunt 
Letty’s visits in the morning and always tried 
to be on hand during the bedmaking and “ put- 
ting to rights ” of the room, for the gossip 
which her landlady cheerfully dealt out. Miss 
Merrill did not know a soul in the village in- 


190 The Little Cockalorum 

timately but she had learned the history of 
every family and their ancestors for several 
generations back. 

“ Yes, she and Ted’s workin’ out there to 
beat everything, putting on knobs, and stick- 
ing in rungs, and trying to get out the 
scratches her mother and grandmother put on 
them things when they were children. She can 
keep her job. I don’t envy her. It’s bad 
enough takin’ care of the furniture that’s had 
care for years, not to mention those broken 
things that’s laid in the attic for dear knows 
how long. She calls them 4 antiques.’ I guess 
they are, all right.” 

Miss Merrill looked up from her papers. It 
was as if the word antiques had caught her 
wandering attention. 44 Are they really an- 
tiques? ” she asked. 

44 Dunno. They’re old enough to be. Why, 
I bet they got stuff left in the attic since be- 
fore the Revolutionary war. That’s one of the 
oldest houses in Oxford, and Oxford’s an old 
town. The Bashfords — that was Gerry’s 
mother’s name — were well-to-do folks once. 
Too bad the way those children let everything 
go to seed. Of course, poor dears, they were 


Miss Merrill Breaks a Resolution 191 

young to keep a house going. Sometimes I 
wonder what will happen to them all if their fa- 
ther doesn’t wake up and do something one of 
these days.” 

Aunt Letty would have chattered on indefi- 
nitely, emphasizing her words with thumps on 
the pillows, had not Miss Merrill interrupted 
her. 

“ What’s Gerry trying to sell, and who’s go- 
ing to buy it from her? ” she asked. 

“Land if I know; some old bureaus and 
chairs and things, I guess, but she won’t find 
any second-hand man in Oxford will give her 
more than a couple dollars for the whole out- 
fit.” 

The bed was made, but Aunt Letty lingered, 
making a show of dusting Miss Merrill’s treas- 
ures on her dressing-table and desk. “ Why 
don’t you go over and see what she’s doing? ” 
she asked. “ I’d do it myself, but Gerry don’t 
take much stock in what I think any more. 
She just teases me. Now you — she’d listen to 
what you’d tell her.” 

Miss Merrill sat tapping her pencil ner- 
vously and looked off across her river view as if 
she had not heard Mrs. Wilcox at all. Then 


192 The hit tie Cockalorum 

she stepped to her mirror, fluffed out her hair, 
and picked up her favorite sunshade, which 
usually accompanied her on her afternoon 
walks. “ I believe I will,” she said, and in a 
few minutes was picking her way across the 
Houston garden to the barn. 

Aunt Letty, watching her behind the ruffled 
muslin curtains, shook her head. She could not 
understand her boarder. “ Mysterious, plain 
mysterious!” she told Elizabeth. “Never 
gets a bit of mail, don’t want to see nobody, 
not even the minister’s wife when she called. 
I wouldn’t be surprised if Miss Merrill 
wasn’t her name, even. But don’t go and 
tell Gerry this; she idolizes her, that child 
does.” 

“ Do you suppose she has committed a 
crime? ” Elizabeth asked, her eyes wide in 
alarm. 

“ Heavens no, child. But there’s something 
funny, mark my words. She’s hiding from 
somethin’ or somebody.” 

It was Miss Merrill’s first visit to the Hous- 
tons’ since the night of the party; in fact, her 
first call anywhere in Oxford. She found Ted 
hammering away at the hinge of a heavy tilt- 


Miss Merrill Breaks a Resolution 193 

leaf card-table which he had propped against 
one of the long vacant stalls. 

“ Gerry’s gone to the library,” he said in an- 
swer to Miss Merrill’s question. Then with a 
boyish, but altogether charming manner, he 
cleared a place for her to sit on one of the sev- 
eral chairs that stood around. “ We’re put- 
ting this old stuff together, you see,” pointing 
to the debris around him. “ Father is helping 
a bit, too, but I don’t think he takes Gerry very 
seriously. So she’s off to the library to see if 
she can find out in the big reference book 
what’s missing from that.” He pointed as he 
spoke to a Windsor chair, worn satiny smooth 
with age. It had a straight spindle back and 
arms and deep curved saddle seat, but the 
whole thing listed to one side where a rocker 
was needed. 

“ I should say another rocker was missing,” 
said Miss Merrill, appreciating what the old 
chair must once have been. 

“ Oh, it isn’t that. Gerry discovered that 
those rockers were put on after the chair was 
made and used; see the way the legs are worn 
here at the bottom? So I’m just going to take 
the other rocker off before I rub it down. But 


194 T'he Little Cockalorum 

it’s here at the back, where these little holes 
are,” and he showed Miss Merrill a row of 
five small holes at the top of the chair back. 
“ Something must have fit in there, but we 
can’t find it.” 

“ It was probably a comb-back Windsor, 
with a little head-rest that looked like a tall 
comb at the back,” Miss Merrill informed him 
enthusiastically. “ If you can find it and 
make a good job of your complete chair it 
ought to bring you thirty or forty dollars from 
a good dealer.” 

“ Honest? ” asked Ted, his eyes dancing. 
“ That’s what Gerry was hoping. Gee, maybe 
she is right after all. She counted that there 
must be several hundred dollars’ worth of stuff 
here now. She’s been reading it all up in the 
library. She says nobody is going to stick her 
and make her give up her treasures for thirty 
cents. Why, there’s this table I’m working on 
now — it used to stand in Mother’s room, Geny 
said, but she never knew a leaf belonged to it 
until she saw where the hinges had been. Then 
she looked all over for the other leaf and we 
couldn’t find it, until one day Elizabeth re- 
membered there was some kind of a leaf under 


Miss Merrill Breaks a Resolution 195 

the stand she had made for plants in the din- 
ing-room, and sure enough, there it was. I'll 
have to take off the marks where the oil-cloth 
stuck to it, but I know how to do that with oil 
and pumice powder. I worked last summer, 
you know, for old Mr. Chase, who makes 
chairs here in the town. My arms used to 
ache at night. They’re pretty bad now, but 
Gerry won’t let up. When she gets an idea in 
her head she never gives up. I wish Father 

had half as much ” but here he stopped 

and reddened, for his eager little tongue had 
run away with him and made him say what his 
loyal heart would never have prompted. 

Miss Merrill pretended not to hear as she 
examined the other pieces of furniture Gerry 
had selected for sale. 

“ Why, here’s a real pie-crust table as sure 
as you live,” she cried, running her finger over 
the waving edge of the old mahogany. 

“ Yes, Gerry says that is the best thing 
we’ve got. It’s in pretty good shape too. All 
I have to do is to tighten the screws in the little 
bolt underneath, and give it a good rub up to 
get the dust out of the carving. Great, isn’t 
it?” 


196 "The Little Cockalorum 

“ YouVe got the artistic sense too, I see ,” 
remarked Miss Merrill warmly. “ A table like 
this in good condition should bring five hun- 
dred dollars at least. It looks like a good spec- 
imen. Gerry is right; this alone will pay her 
tuition if she can sell it.” 

“ Say,” exclaimed Ted admiringly, “ you 
know a lot about these things, don’t you? ” 

“ It is, or used to be, a hobby of mine. I 
once knew a collector, — some collectors of such 
things.” Miss Merrill seemed confused and a 
dull flush suffused her face. But Ted rubbing 
away at the heavy old card-table did not see it. 

They chatted on for another half hour or so, 
Miss Merrill examining everything in sight, 
asking questions about what was left up in the 
attic, and showing her interest generally. 

“ Tell Gerry I would like to see her this 
evening,” she said at last when the morning 
grew late, and odorous whiffs from over at 
Aunt Letty’s proclaimed the fact that dinner 
was in progress. She was just leaving the 
bam, however, when Mr. Houston came across 
the garden. 

“ Miss Merrill,” he greeted her cordially, 
" this is good to receive such a neighborly call. 


Miss Merrill Breaks a Resolution 197 

I’m sorry I was not at home. Has Ted been 
doing the honors? ” 

“Yes, he entertained me very nicely, 
though I really came over to see Gerry and 
what she was doing. I have been awfully curi- 
ous to know what all the hammering was 
about.” 

Mr. Houston laughed. “ These children 
have something up their sleeve, I don’t know 
exactly what. They want some money and 
are trying to piece together our few feeble 

antiques. Of course ” he shrugged his 

shoulders and gave Miss Merrill a knowing 
look as much as to say, “ It does no harm to 
humor them, and it keeps them out of mis- 
chief.” 

Miss Merrill dug the point of her sunshade 
into the soft ground in front of the barn, then 
glanced up the ladder leading to the Roost. 
“ Mr. Houston, I wonder if I could talk to you 
alone for a few minutes, or don’t you like call- 
ers in your studio during working hours? ” 

“ My dear young lady, nothing would please 
me more. Re careful of those round rungs, 
they are slippery. There now, I will lead the 
way and give you a helping hand.” 


198 The Little Cockalorum 

But Miss Merrill was surprisingly agile. 
“ Oh,” she cried, sniffing the familiar mixed 
odor of paint and tobacco, “ it’s so long since 
I have been in a studio! ” 

“ Then you’re an artist, or know artists? ” 
inquired Mr. Houston politely. 

“No, I don’t paint, I write. I have done 
a lot of magazine work in the last few years 
and of course come in contact with plenty of 
artists. But we won’t go into that. What I 
wanted to talk to you about is Gerry. I don’t 
need to tell you, Mr. Houston, that you have 
a very charming, very wonderful young 
daughter.” 

“ No,” said Mr. Houston slowly, “ nobody 
need tell me that. While it would be wrong 
to draw comparisons between my children, 
Gerry means more to me than the others, for 
she is more like her mother. She has the same 
fire and enthusiasm, — and faith in me. If her 

mother had lived ” his voice trailed off in 

silence. Miss Merrill glanced at him sympa- 
thetically. 

“ I beg your pardon, Miss Merrill,” he said 
a minute later; “ you didn’t come to hear about 
my failure. Let me show you my studio and 


Miss Merrill Breaks a Resolution 199 

treasures.” Then he displayed to her delighted 
eyes his sketch-books, records of student days 
in Paris; and delightful, intimate studies of 
home life, of his lovely young wife when her 
babies were small. 

Miss Merrill handled them gently. “ Yes, 
Gerry is very much like her. I don’t under- 
stand, since she had faith in your work, as you 
say, and such strength of character, why you 
did not go further. I mean, why the world 
has not heard from you,” she ended lamely. 
It was a delicate subject, yet somehow she felt 
her opportunity was here to accomplish some- 
thing for Gerry and this wonderful artist fa- 
ther who was wasting the sweetness of his art 
on desert air. She had been inclined to be- 
lieve, from the fact that she had never heard of 
him or his work, that he was a dabbler, a laz y 
dreamer, without any real ability, but imagin- 
ing he was set apart for better things. Now 
she knew she stood in the presence of a real 
genius. ; *j 

“ I did some good work as a young fellow. 
The first few years of my married life I was 
making my way with portraits. In fact, I 
was almost a fad for a season or two. Then I 


200 The Little Cockalorum 

began to experiment with a new method of 
using color; the painters in those days were 
chary of color, you know. I suppose I was just 
a little ahead of the futurists, though I never 
liked their work or took them very seriously. 
My portraits stopped, for my clients did not 
like my new use of color. Our income dwin- 
dled. We moved down here when Gerry was 
a baby. We had a roof over our heads, and 
through a very small income from my father’s 
estate, enough to eat. We were happy. I 
painted away, my wife spurring me on, though 
I often wondered if she did not regret the por- 
trait days of plenty. She would always say 
when I mentioned it, however, that the way 
of the discoverer and explorer was always 
hard. I had very nearly reached the point in 
my color experiments where I was turning out 
work to my satisfaction, and had planned a 
portrait of her in my new style, when she 
died.” Mr. Houston stopped for a few min- 
utes. Miss Merrill was beginning to under- 
stand. This happened so often, these artists 
with their marvelous talent going to pieces 
when the strong power and direction back of 
them failed. 


Miss Merrill Breaks a Resolution 201 


“For a year I did not touch a brush/’ he 
went on. “ The children were very little. I 
did the best I could for them with Aunt 
Letty’s help. Gradually I took up my work 
again, but the zest had gone out of it. Other 
men have long since done what I was trying 
to do. I am a failure.” 

“ What, with a daughter like Gerry to spur 
you on, to hold you to your work with her faith 
and ideals? Mr. Houston, believe me when I 
say that I know no man who is blessed with 
more than you have, and believe me too when 
I say that your work compares more than fa- 
vorably with the best in the country. The years 
of hard work you have spent on it show. No 
amount of dash and originality can make up 
for real work in any art.” 

Mr. Houston lifted his head and looked at 
Miss Merrill as if to see whether she were 
speaking the truth. “ Do you really mean it? 
I wish I could believe you. Let me show you 
the last thing I have been doing, Gerry’s Wil- 
low Tree tableau. She says you were respon- 
sible for the idea,” and he turned face outward 
a canvas propped against the wall. 

“ Nonsense, I just helped her with the cos- 


202 The hit tie Cockalorum 

tumes,” Miss Merrill protested. Then she 
stopped short in sheer wonder at the beautiful 
bit of color that stood before her. It was like 
a bit stolen from the Arabian Nights. The 
slender poplar trees rose tall and stately from 
beside the hedge, making long dark gashes 
against the deep, dark sapphire sky. The sil- 
ver moon shed a faint and mysterious radiance 
on the Chinese figures, that looked so small 
and unreal in the shadows of the tall trees. 

“ Mr. Houston,” she said at last, “ you are 
doing a threefold wrong if you allow a thing 
like this to stand and gather dust in your 
studio. You wrong yourself, you wrong a 
beauty-loving world, and you wrong your chil- 
dren who need the money your work could 
bring to develop in themselves the artistic 
sense you have passed on to them. Gerry 
wants to go to college. Something within her 
is urging her to development. She has more 
than a taste for interior decoration. She will 
do as much with color in furnishing a room as 
you are doing here on canvas. Four years of 
college to develop her mind and a little train- 
ing and she will go far. Gerry tells me Ted 
wants to be an architect. How will he do it 


Miss Merrill Breaks a Resolution 203 

if you will not help? Please let me give you 
some letters, or write to some of the art editors 
I know, and recommend you to them for their 
attention? They should be able to use some 
of your pictures for covers. I am not asking 
you to devote yourself to commercial work en- 
tirely — I would not have it so. But some of 
your smaller studies could be sold from time 
to time for ready money to the magazines, and 
you could devote the rest of your time to get- 
ting bigger, and more important work, ready 
for the exhibitions. For it is time you let the 
world see what you are doing.” 

44 You are very kind,” stammered Mr. 
Houston. “ I hardly know how to thank you 
for your interest. I’ll think over what you 
have said.” 

44 There, I hear Aunt Letty’s dinner bell, so 
I’ll have to run. I hope you’ll pardon me for 
speaking so plainly, but I just couldn’t help 
it,” and Miss Merrill was off down the ladder, 
a resolution broken, for she had promised her- 
self that during her isolation in Oxford she 
would, under no circumstances whatsoever, 
hold communication with the outside world. 


CHAPTER XIII 


KOCKS ahead! 

“ How's little Kriss Kringle this morning? ” 
asked Dave Manning, sticking his head in the 
barn door where Gerry sat polishing the brass 
handles of a chest of drawers. “ Elizabeth 
told me what you were doing out here. Why 
didn’t you let a fellow know so he could give 
you a helping hand? ” 

Gerry looked up from her polishing. “ I 
may have to borrow your truck again and ask 
you to help me peddle my wares if someone 
doesn’t soon show up to buy them.” 

“ Haven’t you had any offers? ” Dave asked, 
getting serious. 

Gerry shook her head. “ Nary a one. And 
to tell you the truth, Dave, I’m getting anx- 
ious. I didn’t know a single dealer in antiques 
except one dishonest one, so I went to Dr. 
Honeywell. He knows a lot of people on ac- 
204 


Rocks Ahead! 


205 


count of his buying and selling china and glass, 
you see. So he said he would write to several 
he thought he could trust. That was a week 
ago, and nobody has turned up yet. Maybe 
they think it isn’t worth a trip up from New 
York, or maybe they think there is plenty of 
time. But I need the money, Dave. The sum- 
mer is almost over; college opens in less than 
a month.” 

“ Well, I must say you seem cheerful about 
it,” Dave remarked. 

“ I’m not really, but I have such a splendid 
hunch that these things are worth money that 
I won’t give up hope until the last minute — 
not if I have to borrow your truck and run it 
down to New York and go up and down Fifth 
Avenue crying, ‘ Old furniture for sale! Old 
furniture for sale! Who wants to buy? 
George Washington wrote his love letters to 
Martha on this desk, Benjamin Franklin 
drank tea at this table, Thomas Jefferson 
stretched his legs out in this chair. Who’ll 
buy? ’ ” 

“ Did they really? ” asked Dave. 

“ Oh, I don’t know, but they could have. 
They’re old enough for that.” 


206 The Tittle Cockalorum 

“ Are they worth very much? ” Dave per- 
sisted. He had his doubts that anyone could 
want such old furniture when they could get 
new things so much cheaper. 

“ Certainly. Miss Merrill says so, and I 
guess she knows.” 

“ Why doesn’t she tell you what to do with 
them then? ” 

Gerry’s face fell. “ I don’t know. She 
seems kind of funny about it. She was so in- 
terested that I naturally went to her right 
away to ask her if she knew any dealer I could 
sell them to. But she acted queer, seemed sur- 
prised to hear I had no one in mind, and said 
of course if I couldn’t find anyone else she 
would be glad to write to someone she knew.” 

“ Well,” said Dave, as if that settled it. 

“ But I don’t want to ask her to. I have 
an idea she is hiding here for something or 
other, and doesn’t want her friends to know 
where she is. She’s such a darling, I can’t im- 
agine anything wrong about her.” 

“ No,” Dave agreed, “ I can’t think that she 
has forged a check or robbed a bank. But if 
you don’t want to ask her any more I suppose 
you’ll just have to hold your horses and see 


Rocks Ahead! 207 

what Dr. Honeywell’s letters bring about. In 
the meantime ” 

“ In the meantime. I’ll polish up the han- 
dles of the big front drawer. I’ll polish up the 
handles so carefully that they’ll make me an 
offer from the big cit-ee,” paraphased Gerry, 
humming the lilting tune from Pinafore. 

“ In the meantime, Little Buttercup ” 

“ It wasn’t Buttercup, it was the Admiral,” 
corrected Gerry. 

“ What does it matter who it was? I have 
been trying to tell you for five minutes that I 
just dropped in to invite you up the river for 
a picnic. Russ is going to take us up in his 
car; everyone is going. And if Elizabeth will 
make us a big three-decker cocoanut cream 
cake she may go too.” 

“ What shall I bring? ” asked Gerry, jump- 
ing up from her polishing, her lovely mis- 
matched eyes wide with excitement. 

“ Your sweet smile and some ideas for a 
corking good time. It’s to be the day after 
to-morrow if the weather’s fine. We’ll drive 
up about four o’clock, take our supper, build 
a big fire, toast marshmallows and come home 
in the moonlight.” 


208 *The Little Cockalorum 

“ Oh, good ! I haven’t been to a picnic this 
summer. I’ll be there if you have to carry me 
on a stretcher, Mr. Manning.” 

“We probably will. I never saw a picnic 
yet when something didn’t happen to you, 
Gerry.” 

They both laughed at the memory of other 
years, of the time Gerry disturbed a hornet’s 
nest, of another time when she sank to her 
waist in a marshy field, of the baseball game 
when she made a spectacular home run but 
turned her ankle in the bargain. Gerry’s love 
of adventure and discovery had always led her 
into mishaps as well as knowledge. 

“ But I’m growing up now, Dave,” she said 
as she took up her polishing rag and again at- 
tacked her handles. 

“ Don’t grow up too fast, Gerry,” Dave an- 
swered; “we all like you better young and 
foolish, you know.” 

The picnic day dawned clear and pleasantly 
warm. At three o’clock Elizabeth’s cake lay 
wrapped in layers of waxed paper in a small 
basket waiting to be laid carefully in Russ’s 
machine. The girls in their comfortable middy 
blouses and short white skirts, that would be 



They Idled Along 






























































Rocks Ahead! 209 

ready for the tub at the end of the day, finished 
their preparations early. But when Russ’s car 
drew up it was full. 

“ Schofield’s bus is in the hospital,” was 
Russell’s greeting, “ so some of you will have 
to go up the river way. Who’s game? ” 

“ Oh, let me, I’ll go in the canoe!” volun- 
teered Gerry first. 

“ Well, we’ve corralled two canoes, so four 
of you can go in them and we’ll take the rest 
of the crowd in our car,” arranged Russ. 

Gerry, Dave, Bob Schofield and Babe Stan- 
dish, “ a silly little thing who never knows her 
own mind,” as Gerry once described her in 
confidence to Elizabeth, were elected. They 
made their way down to the river, where in a 
boat-house near the Main Street bridge, they 
found the two canoes that Russ had borrowed 
for the occasion. 

The boys were good paddlers, but the after- 
noon was so deliciously drowsy that they idled 
along, hugging the banks of the river where 
thirsty old trees dipped down to the water for 
a perpetual drink. 

“ Let me paddle, Dave,” pleaded Gerry. 

“ Nope, I’m captain of this ship. I don’t 


210 The Little Cockalorum 

want you to start the fun with a spill, no matter 
what you might do at the end of this perfect 
day.” 

The others had reached the picnic place when 
they arrived. It was a smooth slope carpeted 
with grass and shaded with tall trees, an ideal 
camping ground, with a small brook of spring 
water running through it to the river. Russ 
and some of the other boys had built a fire in 
an old ring of stones left from last year. The 
girls were already unpacking the eats. There 
was a huge basket of corn, potatoes, and toma- 
toes to be roasted in the embers, and a big pot 
of coffee brought by Adine to be boiled. The 
last afternoon hours passed as they always do 
with preparations for supper, foolish games 
of tag, and races. 

Then someone suddenly remembered there 
was no cream for the coffee, and Russell vol- 
unteered to paddle across the river to a farm- 
house for it. He got the cream, and came back 
triumphant, only to find the jar had tipped 
over in the canoe and spilt most of the con- 
tents. So they drank black coffee after all. 

Then Gerry so nearly sat on Elizabeth’s 
cocoanut cake that the whole party was in an 


Rocks Ahead! 211 

uproar to “ put her out.” It was a wonderful 
picnic, like many they had all had together be- 
fore. 

As they sat around the remains of their 
feast, twilight descended. A silver moon came 
up out of the eastern sky, while the west was 
still rosy from the setting sun. The church 
spires and trees of the village across the river 
were black against the sunset. Church bells 
tolled for evening service, dogs barked, birds 
rustled gently above them. Their voices 
drifted low and then were silent. They were 
enjoying the almost religious peace of the 
evening. 

“ It's like heaven,” breathed Gerry to Adine 
whose back was pillowed softly in Gerry’s 
strong arms. Then when the salmon and tur- 
quoise of the sunset had melted into the lapis 
blue of the evening sky, and stars pricked 
through before the moon had become too bril- 
liant, Russell broke the silence. 

“ Come on, fellows, let’s put on a record. 
All set for 4 There’s a Long, Long Road a 
Winding ’ ? Ready ? Go ! ” 

It was a lusty chorus and over it all Eliza- 
beth’s cool soprano rang clear and true. She 


212 "The Little Cockalorum 

loved to sing, and if there had been any ambi- 
tion in her make-up, would probably have gone 
far with her voice. Gradually the other voices 
died out, and left her to finish the song 
alone. 

At the last chord, she realized what they had 
done. “ That’s not fair,” she cried. 

“ Good old Elizabeth! ” applauded Russell. 
“ Gee, that’s what I love to hear! Go on, be a 
good sport and sing us some of your whisper 
songs! ” 

Elizabeth’s “ whisper songs ” were little 
croony things she sang so softly that they had 
to crowd close to hear. She had a faculty of 
putting into these low, soft snatches of song 
as much power and beauty as into her other 
singing. Now she gave them, “ Wynken, 
Blynken, and Nod,” “ I know a place where 
the sun is like gold,” and their favorite, 
“ Mighty Like a Rose.” 

Somebody started up the fire again. A five- 
pound tin of marshmallows was brought out, 
long thin sticks that the boys had whittled 
early in the afternoon were distributed, and 
Russ’s banjo numbers were interrupted by, 
“ Oo-oo, quick! This one’s burning! ” or “ I’ll 


Rocks Ahead! 


21 3 

show you how to do it; don’t hold them so close, 
but let them bubble before you take them 
away,” and so on. 

It was Adine who suggested at nine o’clock 
that they had better start home. It was a rule 
they set themselves as a compromise on chap- 
erons. Early parties and home-comings satis- 
fied their parents that these jolly boys and girls 
could be trusted without an older person to 
superintend their fun. 

“ I’d love to go back by canoe,” said Adine 
wistfully as they stacked the things in the back 
of Russ’s car. 

“ Go on, take my place,” urged Gerry im- 
mediately. 

“No, I really oughtn’t. Mother doesn’t 
like the idea of my being on the river, because, 
of course, I can’t swim.” 

“ Oh, fiddle! ” said Gerry. “ It’s as quiet as 
a lamb out there if you don’t strike the current, 
isn’t it, Dave? And besides,” she added rather 
naughtily, “ you never promised your mother 
you wouldn’t, did you? ” 

Adine admitted she had not, but refused to 
go unless Gerry went too. Gerry looked 
around significantly for Babe Standish to see 


214 The Little Cockalorum 

if she would rise to the occasion and give up 
her place in Bob’s canoe. But neither Babe 
nor Bob was to be found. 

“ Gone ahead, I guess,” suggested Dave. 
“ But that’s nothing. I guess I’m strong 
enough to paddle both you girls up the river 
in one boat.” 

So Gerry and Adine were placed in a nest 
of pillows in Dave’s canoe, and glided out into 
a path of moonlight that was almost like fairy- 
land. 

For the first half of the way they slipped 
along in silence, broken only by the muffled 
swish of water as Dave’s paddle broke the 
glassy stillness near shore. Then ahead 
loomed a large black something that blocked 
their path. 

“ What’s that? ” asked Gerry. 

“ That old broken tree. Remember we 
passed it going up to-day? We’ll have to 
strike out into the middle, so hold your hats, 
girls, that current’s ‘ sumthin’ fierce.’ ” The 
canoe followed his guidance to the middle of 
the stream. They could feel the current take 
it and rush it along with its force. 

“ Don’t know why I wasted strength pad- 


Rocks Ahead I 


21 5 

dling,” laughed Dave, letting his paddle drift 
idly in the water close beside the canoe. 
“ We’ll let the current do the work for a 
while.” 

But the words were no sooner out of his 
mouth than a tiny whirlpool over a hidden rock 
twisted the paddle from his unsuspecting 
fingers and whirled it out of reach. 

“ Just my rotten luck,” he grumbled, trying 
to take the catastrophe lightly. But he 
stopped short suddenly for he saw a huge 
boulder rising out of the water. It was a rocky 
part of the river he had forgotten. The cur- 
rent poured here with a roar over a shallower 
river bed and found its way between treacher- 
ous stones. Dave was powerless to steer their 
frail boat to one side. “ Here comes a bump, 
girls,” he called and stooped over to put a pro- 
tecting arm around Adine. It struck, the 
canoe tipped over like an empty egg-shell, and 
the three of them were struggling in the water. 

Gerry came up first, her mouth and eyes 
full of water. It had been so sudden that she 
was laughing when the boat tipped. Now as 
she realized what had happened horror struck 
her heart. Where was Adine? 


2 16 The Little Cockalorum 


“Adine! Adine!” she called frantically. 
A white hand shot up and a muffled voice 
called not five feet away. Gerry struck out 
and grasped at something white just disap- 
pearing below the surface. 

“ Don’t struggle! ” she cried. “ Trust me! 
There, hold my blouse. Don’t let go. I think 
I can make it.” With her burden floating 
with her, she started for shore. Getting out of 
the current was hard work with her heavy shoes 
and billowing skirts. A large flat rock blocked 
their progress. It offered relief. She pulled 
the prostrate Adine to the rock and sat pant- 
ing. 

“ Dave, where is Dave? ” gasped Adine. 

Dave! In her anxiety Gerry had com- 
pletely forgotten him. But he could swim. 
Why hadn’t they seen or heard him in the last 
few tragic seconds? Down the stream bobbed 
the overturned canoe carried on by the swift 
current. 

“Dave! Oh, Dave!” Gerry shouted 
through her cupped hands. And then from 
the other side of the rocks she heard a cry in 
response, and Dave came swimming up to 
them. 


Rocks Ahead! 217 

“Thank heaven you are both safe!” he 
cried, seeing them on their resting place. 

“ What on earth happened to you? ” Gerry 
asked, as he dragged himself up beside them. 

“ Came up under the canoe. Must have 
struck my head, for when I came to I was still 
underneath, holding on for dear life and rush- 
ing down-stream. How did you get Adine 
here? ” 

“ Pure luck,” said Gerry, and then she 
added softly, “ or Providence, rather.” But 
when they turned to look at Adine they found 
she had fallen in a deep faint. 

The rest of that night was a nightmare to 
Gerry. She hardly knew how they managed 
to get their half-conscious burden to shore. 
Both removed their sodden shoes and stock- 
ings to make the swimming easier. When they 
finally struggled up a slippery muddy bank 
they were exhausted. 

“ I’ll beat it right into town and get a ma- 
chine to take her home,” said Dave, “ and 
you’ll stay here with her.” 

Gerry looked around her at the dense grove 
of trees and the thick underbrush and a thou- 
sand thoughts entered her head. She wanted 


2 1 8 The Tittle Cockalorum 

to change places with Dave, yes, even walk into 
town in her bare feet rather than stay here in 
this lonesome spot with the helpless Adine. 
But she merely said, “ All right. And hurry, 
Dave; we must get a doctor to her immedi- 
ately.” 

Dave crashed away through the bushes, and 
she could hear his steps disappearing toward 
the road. It seemed hours that she was left 
alone with Adine, who revived from time to 
time long enough to mutter strange meaning- 
less things. What if Adine should die, Gerry 
kept thinking, as she rubbed her hands and 
ankles while she shivered in her own wet suit. 
She would never forgive herself. She would 
never go to Griffin without Adine, if this ac- 
cident meant trouble for the weak back. She 
would always hate herself, the Sewells would 
hate her, everyone! And then she heard 
voices, and Dave and an auto party he had 
hailed were with them. 

Half an hour later Adine was in her own 
dainty cretonne and gray room, and was smil- 
ing up at Gerry while the doctor scolded her 
for giving them all such a fright, and ordered 
bed for a week. 


Rocks Ahead! 


219 

“ You won’t let them send for Mother, 
Gerry?” Adine asked when the doctor had 
gone. 

“ Not if you think I can take care of you,” 
answered Gerry. 

“ It would spoil her trip and there is no use. 
I was foolish to faint away so, but I have 
always been so scared of the water on ac- 
count of not being able to swim, and when 
I saw the rock coming, and then felt 
that ugly dark water rushing over my head, 
ugh ! ” 

“Don’t think about it!” comforted Gerry, 
squeezing her hand. “ I was to blame. I 
should never have let you come along, but 
Dave thought it perfectly safe.” 

“ Poor Dave, he keeps blaming himself for 
not helping you to pull me to safety, when he 
pretty nearly lost his own life too. I wish I 
could persuade him that I ” 

“ You leave Dave Manning to me. I’ll get 
those foolish notions out of his head. Now we 
won’t even talk about it any more, and you are 
to go to sleep and get strong again to be ready 
for Griffin in three more weeks.” 

“ Gerry, you’re a darling! I have always 


220 


The Little Cockalorum 

owed you a lot, but now I even owe you my 
life. How will I ever make it all up to you? ” 
" By forgetting it,” said Gerry promptly. 


CHAPTER XIV 


EVERYONE SPEAKS AT ONCE 

Adine recovered from her accident in the 
river quicker than the doctor and Gerry ex- 
pected. In fact, the day following she begged 
to be allowed to get up, but the doctor, who 
knew Adine and her infirmity better than any- 
one, ordered bed for a week at least to give the 
nerves a complete rest. 

“We don’t want any relapses, so you’ll be 
in fine condition when your mother comes 
home,” he said later on. Then taking Gerry 
aside he told her he was going away for a few 
days, but that Adine was in good hands, and 
would be none the worse for her ducking if she 
kept quiet for another few days. Gerry prom- 
ised faithfully. 

The two girls, left together for the greater 
part of each day, had much to talk about. 
Griffin played a big part in their conversation. 
Every morning Gerry would run to the post- 
office to see if there was any word from the 
dealers to whom Dr. Honeywell had written. 

221 


222 ‘The Little Cockalorum 

Then early one Monday morning she ran in 
waving a letter in her hands. “ He’s coming,” 
she cried to Adine. “ A Mr. Carruthers from 
Boston. He says he will be here to-morrow.” 

“ Good! I’m so glad! ” said Adine, reach- 
ing for the letter. 

“ I met Miss Merrill on the street and I told 
her all about it. You know she promised to be 
on hand when anyone would come, to help me 
bargain with them, and get my full value. But 
now ” 

“ But now what? ” continued Adine. 

“ She says she must go away to-day, hur- 
riedly, and will not be able to meet this Mr. 
Carruthers with me. I’m so disappointed.” 
Gerry stopped as if considering something, 
then burst out, “ Do you know, Adine, I think 
there is something worrying Miss Merrill. 
She’s trying to live down something, or hide 
from someone. Maybe she got a letter in to- 
day’s mail, because when I saw her last night 
she had no intention of going away to-day. I 
wish I could help her out! ” 

“ Don’t worry!” said Adine. “We can’t 
help everyone we meet in this life who is in 
trouble. Miss Merrill is one of those people 


Everyone Speaks at Once 223 

who have to work out their own lives, I 
think.” 

Then Gerry left her propped up with some 
new library books and magazines that had 
come in the morning mail, to go home and give 
her beloved furniture a last going over in 
readiness for to-morrow’s inspection. 

Adine had just finished a delicious lunch of 
broth and salad ordered by the thoughtful 
Gerry, when the maid brought up a card. 

“ Did she ask for me? ” Adine asked in sur- 
prise as she saw the name of Mrs. Bigbee on 
the pasteboard in her hand. 

“ No, miss, she asked for your mother, and 
when I told her Mrs. Sewell wasn’t home she 
wanted you. She’s got a traveling bag with 
her ; looks as if she expected to stay.” 

Adine’s blue eyes looked thoughtful for a 
minute. She had never liked Mrs. Bigbee and 
especially not after the story Gerry had told 
her of what she overheard at the tea. But she 
could not be rude to an acquaintance of her 
mother’s. 

“ Ask her if she would mind coming up here 
to me, and see if the guest room is ready, 
Sally.” 


224 The Little Cockalorum 

Mrs. Bigbee came in a few minutes later and 
kissed Adine as if she were a long-lost daugh- 
ter. “ You poor darling. The maid has been 
telling me all about it. Of course your mother 
knows and is hurrying to you.” 

Adine shook her head. “ No, Mother does 
not know, and I don’t want her to until she 
gets home from the West. I’m perfectly well, 
only the doctor advises complete rest so I won’t 
have any ill effects from the shock. My back 
has never been strong, you know.” Then she 
stopped as if waiting for Mrs. Bigbee to ex- 
plain her visit. 

“ I’m so sorry. I won’t bother you at all. 
I came down on a little business, and as your 
mother is always so kind, I thought maybe she 
could put me up for a night or two. But 
now ” 

“ Oh, please don’t let it make any difference, 
Mrs. Bigbee. Mother would be so glad to 
have you and if you care to stay until your 
business is finished ■” 

“ Oh, it won’t take me very long,” explained 
Mrs. Bigbee, airily. “ I’ve come down to look 
over some furniture for a friend of mine, an 
antique dealer. Someone, a Dr. Honey-some- 


Everyone Speaks at Once 225 

thing-or-other, wrote to him, and as he was so 
busy he turned the letter over to me. Some- 
one around here, Miss Houston her name is, 
probably an old maid in straightened circum- 
stances, has cleared out her attic and wants a 
buyer. Occasionally one finds something good 
in such a place, but usually it is a lot of junk. 
However ” she paused. 

Adine sank back on her pillows aghast. So 
Mrs. Bigbee was going to bid for Gerry’s 
treasures. It was too bad, a terrible disap- 
pointment, for Adine felt that Gerry would 
never sell to her. 

“ I think this time .you will find more than 
junk,” she said quietly. “ I happen to know 
Miss Houston and that her house is full of fine 
things.” 

“Really?” Mrs. Bigbee moved her chair 
nearer to the bed greedily. “ Does she know 
how much they’re worth? ” 

“ I believe she does,” answered Adine. 

“ Tell me what is the best way to approach 
her? If she has anything worth while I want 
it, but I’m not prepared to pay a fortune for 
it.” 

“ But you’ll pay top prices, surely, for gen- 


226 The hit tie Cockalorum 

uine antiques, won’t you? ” asked Adine inno- 
cently, for an idea had been forming in her 
mind. Why not make this woman, who had 
cheated other people so many times, suffer and 
pay the highest price possible for the things. 
“ Because I have reason to know that a big 
Boston man is coming to look at them to-mor- 
row, and Miss Houston will not give up her 
treasures easily.” 

Mrs. Bigbee’s crafty eyes narrowed. 
“ Then I had better get busy and look up the 
place right away, hadn’t I? ” 

“Let Sally show you to your room first so 
you can make yourself comfortable after your 
tiresome trip.” 

When she had disappeared after Sally, 
Adine sprang out of bed. Her knees felt a 
bit shaky under her, but she was so full of the 
news she would carry to Gerry, and the fun of 
seeing Mrs. Bigbee forced to the wall, that she 
dressed quicker than she had ever done in her 
life. Then tiptoeing softly over the carpeted 
halls she was off down the drive to tell Gerry 
all about it. She had just slipped through a 
gap in the hedge at the back of the garden 
when she saw Mrs. Bigbee leave the veranda. 


Everyone Speaks at Once 227 

She must win the race so that Gerry would 
get her version of the story first. Picking up 
her skirts she ran through the tall grass of the 
meadow. The sun was hot and beat down 
upon her unprotected head. Her legs sud- 
denly went wobbly. She felt as if she were 
having one of those nightmares where one runs 
and runs and cannot get away from that ter- 
rible pursuing thing. She kept on, however, 
her head splitting, everything getting black be- 
fore her. How silly that she could not take a 
little run like this without giving out! She 
reached the shade of the orchard. It was a lit- 
tle cooler here under the trees and she made 
more progress. 

Through the old rail fence she forced her 
aching body. There came sounds of hammer- 
ing from the barn. 

“ Gerry! Oh, Gerry! ” she cried and fell in 
a dead faint in front of the barn door. 

Gerry had been putting some last touches to 
her furniture when she heard the weak call in 
what seemed like Adine’s voice. Throwing 
down her hammer she rushed to the door only 
to find Adine stretched there on the ground. 

‘‘Father! Ted! Elizabeth !” she called. 


228 "The Little Cockalorum 

trying to lift Adine and drag her under the 
shade of an old tree. Her father appeared 
first on the scene, followed almost immediately 
by Ted and Elizabeth. 

“Quick, Ted, the doctor!” Gerry ordered. 
“Now then, Father, help me, and we’ll get her 
into the cool house. What do you suppose she 
was trying to do? Adine, dear, wake up and 
tell Gerry what it was! Oh, I should never 
have left her.” Talking thus at random 
Gerry, with her father’s help, got the uncon- 
scious girl into the house. Elizabeth had cold 
water ready to sprinkle on her face. Gerry 
unlaced her shoes and unbuttoned her frock. 
Adine opened her eyes slowly. 

“ Mrs. Bigbee,” she murmured and then 
went off again into her faint. 

“ Mrs. Bigbee,” echoed Gerry. “ What on 
earth ” 

“ Yes, I’m Mrs. Bigbee,” came a voice from 
the door. “ I knocked twice but everyone 
seemed so busy I thought I’d just step in.” 
Gerry looked up to find the antique dealer 
standing in the doorway. 

“ Won’t — won’t you sit down, Mrs. Big- 
bee? ” gasped Gerry, hardly knowing what she 


Everyone Speaks at Once 229 

said as she led the way into the next room. 

“ We’ve had an accident ” 

“ Thank you, I just stepped in to look over 
some furniture a Miss Houston here has for 
sale. Could I see her? ” settling herself 
calmly, as if prepared to stay. 

“ I am Miss Houston, but this is such a ter- 
rible time. If you could come back later — we 
have an invalid in there on the couch — I 
couldn’t talk business now.” 

“ I see,” nodded Mrs. Bigbee. “ Of course, 
you are excited, but it wouldn’t take long. If 
I could just look at it! ” 

But Ted broke in just then with, “ The doc- 
tor isn’t home, Gerry. He’s gone away and 
Dr. White is off in the country on a case.” 

“ Oh, of course, how stupid of me. I for- 
got,” wailed Gerry. “ Ted, get Dave, he just 
went down the street, and ask him to drive you 
over in the truck like fury for Dr. Honeywell. 
Please hurry ! ” 

Ted rushed off to do her bidding. Gerry* 
completely forgetting her caller, sank on her 
knees beside the couch that held Adine. She 
seemed to have sunk back completely in the 
stupor that held her. Elizabeth was rubbing 


230 The Little Cockalorum 

her wrists, her feet were propped up higher 
than her head on a pile of old cushions, and 
Mr. Houston was walking distractedly up and 
down the room. 

“ What do you think the child was trying to 
do, Gerry? ” he asked. 

“ I’m sure I don’t know,” cried Gerry. “ I 
shouldn’t have left her, that’s all I know. 
Adine, dear Adine! Wake up and tell me all 
about it ! ” 

“ Don’t take on so, Gerry. She probably 
just got lonesome and thought she’d surprise 
you,” suggested Elizabeth. 

“ No, it was more than that. I had prom- 
ised to be back in an hour. She had some- 
thing she wanted to tell me ” then she 

stopped short. Of course it was about Mrs. 
Bigbee. Gerry turned and rushed to the door 
of the next room. Her caller was gone. 

“ Thank goodness! ” she cried. “ I wouldn’t 
have sold to her for a million dollars.” 

It seemed hours, but it was only a very few 
minutes when they heard the truck drive up 
and Ted came rushing in with Dave, Dr. 
Honeywell, and a strange tall man who stood 
discreetly in the background while the doctor 


Everyone Speaks at Once 231 

administered to Adine. They had met the doc- 
tor and the stranger getting off the trolley, 
and had stopped just long enough at the drug- 
store to get some restoratives before coming 
over. 

In five minutes Adine had opened her eyes, 
smiled on them all, and broken into a fit of 
weeping. “ She is all right,” said the doctor 
when Gerry told the story. “ But this will set 
her back again, I’m afraid. Too much sun 
and too little strength in her back, that’s all. 
And now, Gerry, I want to present Mr. 
Carruthers. You had a letter from him, I 
think.” 

Gerry looked up into the long, thin face of 
the man who had followed the doctor into the 
room. It would have been very solemn except 
for a few tiny wrinkles in the corners of the 
eyes. His glossy black hair was just begin- 
ning to turn white above the ears. His clothes 
were perfect in every detail, but not conspicu- 
ous. 

“ A gentleman through and through,” was 
Gerry’s first thought. 

“ I’m sorry to have to intrude at this time, 
Miss Houston,” he apologized. “We were on 


232 "The Little Cockalorum 

our way over to look at your furniture but had 
no idea we would meet anything like this. To- 
morrow is time enough. I’ll go back with my 
old friend Dr. Honeywell and we’ll talk busi- 
ness later.” 

Gerry thanked him for his thoughtfulness. 
Her father and Elizabeth were presented. 
Adine and Dave were having a gentle little 
tiff over by the couch. Elizabeth was in the 
kitchen making a large pitcher of lemonade. 
There was a rustling at the door. 

“May we come in? ” came Miss Merrill’s 
voice, and Aunt Letty’s. 

“ Dear me, don’t ask. Everyone just walks 
in at the Houstons’.” 

Miss Merrill stood framed in the sunny 
doorway dressed for traveling. Her bag and 
wraps lay outside on the step. 

“ I wanted to say good-bye to you all ” 

she began, then, her eyes encountering the tall 
figure of Mr. Carruthers, she stopped 
abruptly. 

“ Jim! ” she cried, as if she had seen a ghost. 

“ Ruthie ! ” he exclaimed, as if he had dis- 
covered the pot of gold at the end of the rain- 
bow. 


a 


Everyone Speaks at Once 233 

Oh, I’m too late, too late! ” she cried turn- 
ing as if to take flight. 

“ I should say you were just in time,” he 
said gently, stepping to her side. “ I’ve been 
looking for you for three whole months. No 
criminal ever covered his tracks so skillfully. 
I have so much to tell you, my dear.” 

“ Isn’t it useless? ” she asked wearily. 

For answer he took her arm and led her 
away, saying, “Will you all please excuse us? 
We have something very serious to set right 
and it may take a long, long time.” 

“ There! ” gasped Elizabeth, who had been 
standing in the kitchen doorway with the cold 
pitcher of lemonade in her hands. “ Wasn’t 
he perfectly grand? Just like ” 

“ It was like the last act of a play,” cried 
Gerry hysterically. 

“ Land alive! ” came from Aunt Letty. “ I 
know’d all the time she was hidin’ from some- 
body, but I never thought it was from a beau 
like that ! ” 

“ Oh, I hope she lets him fix it all up,” said 
Gerry. “ He seems so fine ” 

“ He is,” agreed Dr. Honeywell. “ He is 
one of the finest gentlemen God ever made. 


234 77 ^ Little Cockalorum 

He is the friend/’ turning to Gerry, “ of whom 
I told you, the one who gave me the tear bot- 
tle.” 

“ And who owns the beautiful piece of pink 
jade,” added Gerry. 

“Yes, but I don’t think he owns it now,” 
said the doctor, his kind eyes twinkling very 
merrily. 

“ But you said he was so superstitious about 
it!” 

“ He was. He said he knew trouble would 
come to him when he let it go out of his hands, 
and I fancy it did. But now that he has got 
it back ” 

“ Oh, good! Tell us how it all happened,” 
coaxed the enthusiastic Gerry. 

“ Well, it all happened before your eyes in 
this room not five minutes ago. You see that 
piece of pink jade is hanging around Miss 
Merrill’s neck on that fine gold chain, and now 
that he has found Miss Merrill, I think one 
can truthfully say that the jade will be in his 
possession, for I cannot imagine anyone let- 
ting Miss Merrill slip through his fingers the 
second time.” 

“ But, Doctor, how did you know? ” queried 


Everyone Speaks at Once 235 

Adine, leaning on one elbow to hear the rest 
of this wonderful story. 

“ I saw it on her the night of your Willow 
Tree party, Gerry.” 

“ And you never told? ” 

“ Why should I? It was her secret. One 
could not look into Miss Merrills eyes and 
accuse her of having come by it dishonestly. I 
did not want to raise any false hopes when I 
sent for Mr. Carruthers to come and look over 
your furniture, Gerry, so I did not mention 
it to anyone. But I had a keen desire that 
Fate would take things into her hands and 
bring those two together again.” 

“ And to think he would have missed her if 
you had not brought him over with you to- 
day,” pursued Elizabeth, enjoying the ro- 
mance to the full. 

“ And if I hadn’t gone and fainted he 
mightn’t have come in time,” supplied Adine. 

“ And if you hadn’t fallen in the river, 
you wouldn’t probably have fainted,” ended 
Gerry. “ Don’t things always turn out just 
right? ” 

“ I guess they do,” said Mr. Houston, put- 
ting his hand on Gerry’s shoulder, “ if we just 


236 The Little Cockalorum 

have faith. Where did your other caller go, 
Gerry? ” 

“ Mrs. Bighee? I never gave her another 
thought. She probably left to come back 
later.” 

“ I don’t know,” said Adine. “ She might 
be snooping around. I wouldn’t trust her.” 

Adine was right. Ted, sent on a tour of in- 
vestigation, reported that Mrs. Bigbee was in 
the barn, had examined everything, and that he 
had caught her in the act of trying to scratch 
the finish off the gate-leg table, “ to see if it 
was real mahogany, she told me,” he said ex- 
citedly. “ But I think she was just trying to 
make it look bad. You had better go right 
down, Gerry; she wants to see you.” 

“ Will you come with me, Father? ” Gerry 
asked. “ After all, it’s your furniture, you 
know.” 

They found Mrs. Bigbee seated in the barn 
with her check-book open on her knee. 44 1 
hope you didn’t mind my looking around. I 
want to catch a train, and thought I could 
see your things and settle quickly. Will 
fifty dollars pay you for the lot, Miss 
Houston? ” 


Everyone Speaks at Once 237 

“Fifty dollars!” Gerry almost shouted. 
“ Indeed they will not ! Besides, Mrs. Bigbee, 
I could not sell them to you to-day as I have 
promised another dealer the first choice.” 

“ All foolishness, my dear. First come, 
first served. Because I am in a hurry, I’ll say 
a hundred and we’ll call it square.” 

Gerry shook her head. 

“ One hundred and fifty then? ” Mrs. Big- 
bee’s pen hovered over her check-book. 

“No, nor two hundred, nor three hundred. 
I am not selling to-day, Mrs. Bigbee.” 

The discouraged woman turned to Mr. 
Houston who had remained silent to let Gerry 
do the bargaining. “ Can’t you make her see 
what a foolish little girl she is to turn down 
such a good offer? I could only use one or two 
of the things; the rest is mere junk.” 

“ It is my daughter’s to do with as she 
pleases, and evidently she does not want to sell 
to-day. Can I show you the way to the gate, 
Mrs. Bigbee? ” 

“ Well, will you take four hundred? ” she 
shrilled at Gerry, as she gathered up her gloves 
and bag. 

“ I repeat, no, Mrs. Bigbee.” 


238 The Little Cockalorum 

“ You’re trying to work me up to five hun- 
dred. Well, all right, I’ll give it. Five hun- 
dred then,” and she scribbled the numerals 
across her check, and handed it to Gerry. 

Deliberately Gerry tore the check into bits 
and threw it on the barn floor. “ No, nor five 
thousand. I had no idea I could get even five 
hundred, to be quite honest with you, Mrs. 
Bigbee, but I have certain scruples about the 
kind of people I deal with. If the things are 
worth five hundred, why did you try to get 
them from me at first for fifty dollars? ” 

Mrs. Bigbee shrugged her shoulders and 
murmured something about everyone doing it 
this way. 

“No, I don’t believe they do. I know one 
man who will give me an honest appraisal and 
he is to have first choice to-morrow. Good- 
afternoon! ” 

“ If you could have just seen her,” said 
Gerry, when she told Adine and the others 
about it over the supper table, for Adine had 
promised to spend the night with her and was 
lying on the old couch in the dining-room. 
“ She got as red as a parrot. I never saw any- 
one so disappointed in my life. She went 


Everyone Speaks at Once 239 

down the path calling hack that they weren’t 
genuine, that I had patched up a lot of old 
trash, and so on.” 

“ Serves her right,” said Ted. “ The old 
hen ! ” 

“ I’m so glad. I can tell Mother this now 
and she’ll never have to ask her to visit us 
again.” 

Later in the evening Gerry left the family 
on the porch with the excuse that she wanted 
to tell Aunt Letty all about it. What she 
really wanted to find out was whether Miss 
Merrill had left or not. She called through the 
empty Wilcox house and receiving no answer 
thought she would just peep into Miss Mer- 
rill’s room. 

What was her surprise to find Miss Mer- 
rill’s trunk partly unpacked, some of her 
things lying scattered on the bed, and on the 
dressing-table, standing alone in solitary splen- 
dor, the little shrine; but now its doors were 
open, and looking out from its carved depths 
was the face of Mr. Carruthers with the kindly, 
smiling eyes. 


CHAPTER XV 


A PAGE PROM ROMANCE 

The day following the Great Excitement, 
as Gerry called it, was beautifully clear and 
cool. Thunder showers during the night had 
kept them all awake and restless, but had 
cleared the air. It was one of those “ perfect 
days ” that make folks say, “ I’d like summer 
if it was always like this.” 

Gerry was up bright and early and had 
commandeered Russ’s car to move Adine back 
home, though she did not look much like an 
invalid. Gerry’s good fortune had been like a 
tonic to her. They speculated freely upon 
what Mr. Carruthers would offer her for the 
furniture; hoped they would draw good rooms 
at Griffin ; and got enthusiastic at the prospect 
of the Thanksgiving boxes, and the holiday 
dances that would interrupt the college rou- 
tine. 

“ And now good-bye, roommate,” Gerry 
said, arranging Adine’s mountain of soft pil- 
240 


A Page From Romance 241 

lows behind her back. “ I must hustle along 
or Mr. Carruthers will find furniture without 
a salesman. Don’t you dare leave this bed, 
young lady, without a written permission from 
your visiting nurse.” 

Gerry’s heart sang within her as she went 
back the orchard way that had been Adine’s 
undoing the day before. Her imagination was 
painting the gray towers of Griffin before her 
in the low branches of the apple-trees. Should 
she get a blue coat or a brown coat for the 
cold weather? Wouldn’t it be fun to write to 
Aunt Geraldine and tell her she was really 
going? Would chemistry or physics be better 
than botany for her sophomore science? She 
hoped she would get a chance to play Puck in 
Senior dramatics. 

As she threw herself over the low railings of 
the fence, she noticed that Miss Merrill’s win- 
dows were open and that someone inside was 
moving about and singing happily. Gerry 
smiled, and obeying an impulse ran up Aunt 
Letty’s stairs to Miss Merrill’s room. 

“ I came over last night to use my influence 
for Mr. Carruthers,” she said, when Miss Mer- 
rill had pushed her down into a low rocker and 


242 The Little Cockalorum 

coaxed her to stay a little while, “ but I found 
I did not need to,” pointing to the photograph 
of the gentleman smiling between the little 
carved doors of the wooden picture-frame. 

Miss Merrill blushed prettily. “No, I 
guess Mr. Carruthers found he could argue his 
own case well enough. Oh, Gerry, my dear, 
you have no idea how happy, how happy I 
am. I feel as if I had waked up from some 
horrible nightmare and found my mother hold- 
ing my hand like she did when I was a little 
child. These last few years have been terri- 
ble.” 

Gerry’s ready sympathy overflowed. 4 4 1 
knew something was wrong all the time, but I 
didn’t feel I could intrude into your private 
affairs,” she murmured. 

44 1 shall never forget how sweet you were 
about it, my dear. I shall always appreciate 
your tact and understanding. And to show 
you I mean it, I am going to tell you the whole 
story. That is if you want to hear it.” 

44 1 should say I do,” said Gerry, bouncing 
into the center of the bed and curling her legs 
under her as she used to do when a little girl 
and fairy stories were in order. 44 But first 


A Page From Romance 243 

tell me where Mr. Carruthers is, for I have a 
little business transaction to attend to with 
him.” 

“ He is out in the town somewhere attending 
to some business of his own, so you are safe 
until after lunch, I know.” Miss Merrill, 
sweeping a pile of soft white underthings off 
the big sleepy-hollow chair tilted her head back, 
closed her eyes, and said, “ Let’s see, where 
shall I begin? ” 

“ At the very beginning, when you were a 
baby, of course,” supplied Gerry. 

“ Well, as I have told you, I traveled a lot 
with my father when I was a young girl. My 
mother died when I was a baby. We always 
seemed to have enough money to keep us in 
comfort wherever we were, and I never wor- 
ried. You can imagine my surprise when he 
died suddenly in Budapest and I was left with 
hardly enough to take me back here to Amer- 
ica. I did not find my fathers family very 
friendly; they had resented his wanderings 
very much. There did not seem to be any 
place for me with them, and I soon made up 
my mind to make my own living and be inde- 
pendent. So I started out and found a posi- 


244 Little Cockalorum 

tion in New York as an interpreter, for you 
see I had picked up a good many languages 
in my travels. I did not like the work, for I 
had always wanted to write, but as my bread 
and butter depended on it I stuck. Then one 
night at a dinner which my employer gave for 
some of his foreign patrons, and to which he 
invited me to help with the conversation as in- 
terpreter, I met Mr. Carruthers. He, too, was 
a great traveler, a curio seeker and in a rather 
indifferent way, an antique dealer conducting 
a private business from his home on Washing- 
ton Square. We liked each other so much that 
night, and had so much to talk over about the 
places we had both seen and lived in, that we 
met again and again. I had tea with him one 
afternoon at his home duly chaperoned by his 
old aunt who lived with him, and I have never 
seen such a gorgeous place. That afternoon 
he gave me this piece of jade, and I was very 
happy. 

“ Then he found out that I did not like my 
work but wanted to write, and agreed with me 
that my wanderings should have provided ma- 
terial for some wonderful tales if I could just 
get time to write them. He suggested that I 


A Page From Romance 245 

try to get a position on a magazine and see 
how this writing game is managed on the in- 
side. So he gave me a letter to an editor friend 
of his and I was taken on first as a clerk to 
use my powers of translation again, and later 
as an assistant editor. I loved the work. In 
fact I was so thrilled with it all that I gave up 
the idea of writing for a long time. I met in- 
teresting people, artists, authors, and stage 
folks, and had such good times! Always Mr. 
Carruthers was there to help me out of tight 
places and to shower upon me in his beautiful 
chivalrous way, gifts and good times. 

“ Then one night he asked me to marry him, 
I don’t suppose I should have been surprised, 
but I was. I could not think of him as want- 
ing to marry anybody, as settling down in a 
home such as I had always pictured, a small 
cozy house with a kitchen that I could work in 
myself. I told him that, — how all my life I 
had wandered like a ship adrift, of how I 
wanted an anchor. I was not even sure I loved 
him. He was patient and understanding. He 
told me to take my time, to think it over. Our 
good friendship asserted itself; we went on 
with our parties and our work. 


246 The Tittle Cockalorum 

“ And then America went into the war. 
Immediately everything was changed. When 
I thought of Jim leaving me to go over and 
fight I was panicky. I knew I loved him, but 
I also knew I wanted him to go. I would have 
married him then and there. But one night he 
came to me and told me he had decided he was 
gaining nothing by waiting for me here, that 
word had come to him of treasures lying about 
in Europe that could be picked up for a song 
and that he was going abroad to see what he 
could find. I was stunned. I could hardly 
believe my ears. Could I have been deceived 
in him? Was this the man I had believed so 
upright, so honorable, such a gentleman? I 
let him go with my head high and a smile on 
my lips, but oh, the pain in my heart! 

“ And to hear the friends we had made to- 
gether calling him a slacker, hiding behind his 
wealth to escape service or enlistment! I 
chimed in with them and tried to bury the 
thoughts of our love in hard work. I got into 
war work. My gift of languages was again 
valuable and I gave my services to the govern- 
ment in the censor’s office. I tried hard to for- 
get and succeeded partly. 


A Page From Romance 247 

“ When the war was over I went back to my 
magazine work again, intending, as soon as I 
felt I had gotten into the swing of things lit- 
erary, to get about my cherished writing. 
Then one day on the street a few months ago I 
met Jim. He stopped as if to speak but I 
looked through him as though he were air and 
hurried to my rooms where I broke down in a 
fit of weeping. You see it showed me that I 
still cared, and I was so ashamed of myself, 
and so afraid I would some day meet him and 
return his smile that I made arrangements to 
run away. I came and buried myself here 
until I could be sure I could trust myself. I 
meant to try my wings with my writing and 
so forget again. I picked Aunt Letty’s house 
because it was so much like the dream house I 
had always pictured.” 

“ It’s just like a novel or a play,” sighed 
Gerry as Miss Merrill paused. And in the 
pause came a cheery voice from the foot of 
the stairs. 

“Yes, Jim,” Miss Merrill answered, bus- 
tling into an adorable straight-lined lavender 
linen that made her look scarcely any older 
than Gerry. “ I’ll tell you the rest later,” she 


248 The Little Cockalorum 

whispered. “ Now I must keep an engage- 
ment with my ‘ beau,’ but we’ll be over after 
lunch.” 

Gerry could hardly wait until lunch was 
over. She was almost more excited over the 
sequel to Miss Merrill’s story than she was 
about the furniture. What had happened to 
bring Mr. Carruthers back to Miss Merrill’s 
favor again? How had he found her? What 
would they do now? To be in such close per- 
sonal touch with a romance like this gave 
Gerry more thrills than she had ever felt at 
the best movie in her experience. 

They came at last, Mr. Carruthers guiding 
Miss Merrill over the garden with a tender, 
proprietary air. He had not gone back with 
Dr. Honeywell the night before, but had 
stayed at Oxford’s one hotel, he explained, so 
he could be on hand early in the morning. 
Now he was going over Gerry’s furniture in a 
sure professional way that could not but make 
one feel he knew what he was doing almost 
better than anyone else. 

“ She wasn’t far off when she offered you 
five hundred,” said Mr. Carruthers, rubbing 
his finger along the edge of the pie-crust table 


A Page From Romance 249 

in which he seemed to have the greatest inter- 
est. “ It’s genuine. You can tell by the thick- 
ness of the wood, proving that this wavy edge 
was not carved later from a plain tilt-top table 
as so often happens.” 

“ Father says he thinks it has been right in 
this house for five generations at least,” said 
Gerry softly, as if fearing to break the spell. 

“ I don’t doubt it. It is a prize. I think I 
can easily give you five hundred for it alone. 
The other things would not bring so very 
much in a shop because of their condition, but 
as I know people who are going to furnish a 
country house very soon and will want just 
such old things as these ” 

Gerry glanced at Miss Merrill, a radiant, 
youthful girl, swinging her feet from an old 
barrel, and caught the slow blush that spread 
over her cheeks. “ Oh, is it true? I hope it is 
true ! ” she cried. 

“ Shall we tell her, Ruthie? ” Mr. Carruth- 
ers put his question confidentially. 

“ Of course, Jim. She knows all but the 
last few chapters of our romance. I’ll give 
you the honor of finishing it.” 

“ Well, let’s get this business finished first. 


250 The Little Cockalorum 

How does six hundred for the lot strike you, 
little lady? ” 

“ It almost strikes me senseless,” responded 
Gerry with her charming crooked little smile. 
“ Will somebody please pinch me to see if I am 
awake? ” 

“ Very well, we’ll make out our check then 
to Miss Houston. What is the full name, 
please? ” 

“ No, please don’t. I wish you’d make it 
out to Father. You see it’s really his furni- 
ture. I just sort of engineered the sale.” 

The deal was over. Gerry fingered the 
precious bit of paper in her fingers gingerly 
as if it would melt away. There it lay, a year 
of college in her hand. It was too good to be 
time. But she stuffed it in her gingham pocket 
and sat on the lowest rung of the ladder to 
hear the story that Mr. Carruthers seemed 
anxious to tell. 

“ Yes, we walked up last night to see the 
Webster house on the hill and we’re going 
straight from here to lease it. Aren’t we, Mrs. 
Carruthers? ” 

“ Oh, Jim! ” said Miss Merrill, but her eyes 
danced. 


A Page From Romance 251 

“ We’re going to turn it into a not too mod- 
ern colonial home, and we will spend our sum- 
mers there and maybe when we are old and 
gray come to live there ! ” 

“ My haunted house! ” Gerry was duly en- 
thusiastic. “ Can I watch you furnish it? ” 

“ I should say so. But now I want to tell 
you why this young lady over here ran away 
from me. She thought I was no good, an 
idler, a slacker. And though she loved me 

dearly all the time ■” 

“ Who said I did? ” put in Miss Merrill. 

“ And though she loved me dearly all the 
time,” repeated Mr. Carruthers with a twinkle 
belying his seriousness, “ she could not bring 
herself to marry a man who just lived on his 
money, as she thought, and wandered over the 
world picking up curios when Uncle Sam 
needed every bit of his man-power across the 
seas. I admit it looked very bad. In fact it 
gave me some very bad nights when I thought 
of what Ruth and the ones I loved best must 
think of me. But you see I was really helping 
Uncle Sam all the time. I was in the secret 
service where I had figured out my knowledge 
of foreign countries and my acquaintances over 


ip The Little Cockalorum 

there would count most. And, of course, my 
orders were to let no one, not even my family, 
know that I was even in the service. 

“ When the war was over I fairly ached to 
get home and reinstate myself, if I could, with 
my Ruthie, but they held me on to straighten 
out some tangled threads of diplomacy of 
which I held the ends. And so it was not until 
a few months ago, the day after I landed, that 
I saw Ruth again — and she cut me dead, didn’t 
you, sweetheart? ” 

Miss Merrill nodded. 

“ But I didn’t mind so much until I learned 
that she was not to be found in New York 
City, and that I could not explain. I traced 
her at last to the magazine she was working on, 
but from there it was as if the earth had opened 
up and swallowed her. Never, not even in the 
thick of war duties, have I put in such a time 
as I have this summer. Do you hear that, 
young lady? ” 

“ Oh, Jim, I don’t see how I could ever have 
doubted you. I’ll never really forgive my- 
self.” 

Mr. Carruthers impulsively caught her hand 
and kissed it in old world fashion. “ Never 


A Page From Romance 253 

mind, little sweetheart,” he murmured, “ it 
was hard for both of us. But with Duty be- 
hind us and Love and Happiness ahead we 
have nothing to fear nor regret. From now 
on everything in the Carruthers household will 
be aboveboard.” 

“ I am so happy for you both,” Gerry cried. 
“ It must be wonderful to be together after 
thinking you were never going to see each 
other again. I hope I have a lover like you, 
Mr. Carruthers, some day,” she ended impul- 
sively. 

Mr. Carruthers threw a knowing glance at 
Miss Merrill. Then drawing Gerry’s hand to 
his lips as he had done with Miss Merrill’s, he 
kissed it reverently, saying, “ I wouldn’t be a 
bit surprised if you had, Gerry dear, and may 
he be a much worthier lover than I.” 


CHAPTER XVI 


JUST ONE PARTY AFTER ANOTHER 

The first week of September was nearly 
over. Labor Day had come and gone with a 
wonderful motor trip to the County Fair and 
a typical good time there with the whole crowd. 
They had viewed the cattle and vegetable ex- 
hibits, examined the quilts and jars of pre- 
serves and pies, bought “ ticklers,” ridden the 
hobbies, danced in the crude rustic pavilion, 
eaten cones, peanuts, pink lemonade, hot-dog 
sandwiches until they were sick, and did not 
get home until almost midnight. 

“ Gerry, you’ve simply got to stop playing 
and get ready for school,” Elizabeth warned 
her the next morning, when she appeared 
rather sleepy-eyed for a ten o’clock breakfast. 

“ Plenty of time,” yawned Gerry. “ I’m 
going. I’m on my way to Griffin, that’s all 
that worried me. Any mail? ” 

Elizabeth pointed to a small pile lying on 
Gerry’s plate. 


254 


Just One Party After Another 255 

“ Oh! Griffin opens September 25th and if 
one has any exams one must be there on the 
20th. I have to make up some entrance Latin, 
Adine says.” Geny turned her postal of an- 
nouncement over and over as if, in some way 
or other, it might be able to give her the extra 
time she would need to get ready. Then she 
attacked the envelopes that lay before her. 

“ Say, listen, Bess! Isn’t this great? 
Russ’s father is giving a dinner party next 
week. My, it sounds formal! ‘Mr. John 
Deaver England requests the pleasure of the 
Misses Houstons’ company ’ — that means both 
of us, Bessie, — ‘ at dinner, Friday evening, 
September tenth.’ What will you wear, 
Bess? ” 

“I don’t have to go, do I?” Elizabeth 
turned an alarmed face toward Gerry. 

“ Why, you foolish kid! Of course you don’t 
have to go, but think of turning down a good 
dinner party! Why, Elizabeth, it will be just 
like you read about in books. There will be 
soft lights, maybe candle lights, and shining 
silver, and everyone will be bright and gay and 
say clever things to the person on her right or 
her left, and the girls will leave before the 


256 "The hit tie Cockalorum 

men so they can smoke — the men I mean — and 
there will be coffee afterward in the drawing- 
room and music, and maybe dancing.” Gerry 
stopped for breath. 

“ How do you know all these things, 
Gerry? ” Elizabeth asked admiringly. 

“ I don’t know. Books, I guess. But I love 
them so. And you will too, so you’ve got to 
go. I’ll fix up that heavy gray silk Auntie 
gave me for you to wear. No one in Oxford 
has seen it because it was too hot to wear in the 
summer. You ought to have a new pair of 
shoes ” 

“ Well, at a dinner my feet wouldn’t show 
much. I can keep them under the table ” 

“ But afterward if we should dance! ” 

“ I’ll pretend I’m tired and sit in a dark 
corner. See, you’ve got me all excited. I talk 
as if I were actually going.” 

“ Which you are. I’m going to accept this 
minute. So that ends it.” Whistling as if her 
life depended upon it Gerry was off in search 
of her fountain pen and the note paper she so 
seldom used. There were other notes to an- 
swer. Babe Standish was giving a luncheon; 
she was going to Yassar, and was leaving early 


Just One Party After Another 257 

to visit in New York. Adine’s mother was 
going to give a surprise party and asked her 
to help manage it. Dr. Honeywell had not 
seen her for two weeks. Had she forsaken 
him? Gerry threw up her hands in despair. 
But oh, it was good to be seventeen, with col- 
lege only two weeks off, and so many, many 
million things to attend to that she did not 
know whether she was standing on her head 
or her feet. 

So she drew the old high-backed chair up to 
the desk, thumped a soft pillow to plumpness 
in the broken seat, took the old square links 
that had been her mother’s from the cuffs of 
her linen shirt, and folded them carefully above 
her elbows, a trick she had learned from the 
boys, and finally got down to work. Eliza- 
beth, looking in an hour later, found her still 
at it, her twisted forelock standing out from 
her head like a crooked horn, and thought that 
Gerry might put off work till the last minute, 
but when she finally got at it she made up for 
lost time in strenuous effort. 

But that afternoon Gerry took a mysterious 
trip into Springfield, Elizabeth protesting that 
she should stay home and look over her Latin, 


258 The Little Cockalorum 

or mend her stockings, or fix the lining in her 
fall coat, or do any of the many things waiting 
to be attended to. But humming as if she 
hadn’t a care in the world, Gerry was off and 
came home late for supper without the shred 
of an excuse to offer. 

The next day she promised to be good, and 
the two girls started in on an orgy of sewing, 
making over, patching, shortening, lengthen- 
ing, and so on. Gerry added to her growing 
piles of clothes on the spare room bed a new 
warm sweater in the most beautiful shade of 
goblin blue, and a velour hat to go with it. 

“ I can’t count on Aunt Geraldine to fit me 
out any more,” she laughed, as she mended a 
split in her one pair of white kid gloves. 

“ No, I guess you’ve cooked your goose with 
her,” sighed Elizabeth. She had never been 
jealous of Gerry, but was glad that someone 
in the family kept in touch with their one near 
relative. 

“ I’d like to write and tell her — no, I’ll wait 
until I’m actually in college. Then maybe she 
will see that I can keep my word and forgive 
me. Poor old dear! Do you know, Bess, for 
all her flying around and having such a per- 


"Just One Parly After Another 259 

fectly good time on her money, I think she 
gets terribly lonesome.” 

“ I’m sure of it. And she must get indiges- 
tion too from so much rich hotel cooking.” 

Gerry laughed. “ Maybe that’s what makes 
her so cranky. Well — would you put that rib- 
bon back on that hat or buy a new quill for it, 
Bess?” 

If Gerry regretted for a minute the pretty 
things she might have had to take to college 
with her had she accepted Aunt Geraldine’s 
offer she did not admit it, even to herself. She 
was so happy she was going the way she had 
planned that nothing else mattered. Besides 
she did not have time to do much thinking. 
There were the chatty afternoon parties where 
the same crowd, with always a few strangers 
to make it interesting, met and talked and gig- 
gled and played games, and enjoyed them- 
selves freely. Adine seemed so well and 
strong that Gerry was doubly happy. 

Mrs. Sewell’s surprise had been set for 
Thursday afternoon. Gerry was to come early 
and take Adine away on some excuse so the 
guests could gather. They went in the Se- 
wells’ car to a farm for fresh eggs and butter. 


260 The Little Cockalorum 

Apparently Adine suspected nothing, for she 
chatted easily on the way about Griffin and of 
how they could not choose their rooms but had 
to draw them by lot, but how the dean had 
promised Mrs. Sewell that Adine would be put 
near Gerry, and so on. 

Gerry’s heart pounded as they got back to 
the Sewells’. She could hear giggling in the 
large living-rooms as they stepped on the porch. 
She hoped Adine didn’t. Together they en- 
tered the house and stood for a second looking 
at the circle of girls sitting in the Sewells’ easy 
chairs and trying so hard not to laugh or cry 
out. Gerry was studying Adine’s face so in- 
tently that she did not see the large suitcase 
hanging over her head, and was so scared when 
someone pulled a string and the lid flew open 
and showered her with small paper-covered 
bundles that she sat right down on the floor 
and cried. 

Then she was untying the ribbons, silver- 
gray and white, the beautiful old colors of 
Griffin, and crying over the pretty gifts the 
girls had brought. Mrs. Sewell and Adine 
stood by laughing till the tears stood in their 
eyes. 


Just One Party After Another 261 

44 Well, I’m glad to see someone put some- 
thing over on Gerry Houston,” said Babe 
Standish. 44 She’s always so smart she smells 
a rat before it even starts to nibble at the 
cheese.” 

Gerry sat on the floor, holding the gifts to 
her and babbling incoherently, the tears still a 
mist in her lovely eyes. 44 Oh, thank you all, 
thank you! Those wool stockings are gor- 
geous, Babe, and just match my sweater. 
How did you know? And the cunning little 
clock, Lilian, why, it’s got an alarm. I’ll need 
that. And scissors! Who was so common 
sensible as to give me scissors? Polly. I 
might have known it. I’ll cut up with them all 
right ! Adine, here’s a duster, all embroidered 
too. It’s almost too nice. Maybe we could 
use it as a table cover. And the little tool kit, 
tacks, hammer, screw-driver and pliers. Why, 
here’s a strip of Chinese embroidery just like 
Miss Merrill’s. Oh, aren’t you all too good for 
words ! ” 

Miss Merrill came in later apologizing for 
her delay. She had been up in Boston she 
said, shopping. Gerry fancied she seemed ex- 
cited underneath her calm exterior. She 


262 *The Little Cockalorum 

glowed as if a lamp were lighted somewhere 
back of her gorgeous brown eyes. “ I’m so 
happy myself that I imagine everyone else is 
extra happy too,” Gerry thought, dismissing 
the idea. But when they were walking home 
together after the surprise shower, after the 
marvelous jellied chicken salad lying in glis- 
tening cubes in beds of crisp lettuce, the paper- 
thin sandwiches with mysterious and tasty fill- 
ing, the hot chocolate almost stiff with whipped 
cream, the luscious Lady Baltimore cake and 
apricot ice, Miss Merrill told Gerry she had 
something to ask of her. 

“ Anything except my new wool stockings,” 
said Gerry, pressing her hand. 

“ Well, you don’t need to be so stingy. I 
just bought a dozen new pairs in town to-day 
for my trousseau. We’re going to be married, 
Gerry, here in Oxford on the fifteenth, and I 
want you to be my maid of honor. Do you 
think you can manage it? ” 

“Manage it!” echoed Gerry. “I’d man- 
age it if I had to come on a hobby horse from 
the North Pole. I think this is just too won- 
derful for anything. I adore weddings. And 
to be in one ! Did you ever notice how it never 


"Just One Party After Another 263 

rains but it pours? It seems to me as if it is 
just one good time after another these past 
two weeks.” 

“ But then starts the grind. College won’t 
he all play, little Miss Merryheart. It is go- 
ing to be hard work if you want to get every- 
thing out of it that you can.” 

“ I know,” agreed Gerry, sobering. “And 
I am going to. I can work as hard as I can 
play, and I’m going to make those four years — 
if there will be four years — count.” 

“ I believe you will,” said Miss Merrill with 
an encouraging pat. And then they went on 
to discuss the wedding. Gerry was to have a 
new frock. Miss Merrill had had three sent 
down on approval. It would do for an even- 
ing dress at college dances afterward. 

“You darling, I believe you thought of all 
that, didn’t you? ” Miss Merrill smiled her 
answer. 

She wondered if Mr. Houston would mind 
“ giving her away ”? She had no near relative 
that she would care to ask. Mr. Carruthers’ 
younger brother would come on from Wash- 
ington to act as best man. 

“ He’s a very attractive young architect, and 


264 The Little Cockalorum 

I warn you it will never do to lose your heart 
to him, Gerry, because he has a new girl every 
week.” Gerry tossed her head and remarked 
that she wasn’t losing her heart to anyone for a 
great many years to come. She was entirely 
too busy for that. 

“ There are too many things I want to do 
first,” she added. Then Miss Merrill men- 
tioned that she and Mr. Carruthers were in- 
vited to the England dinner too. 

“ It will be a little bit of everything, a fare- 
well for Russ, and in honor of you, I expect,” 
Gerry said. 

“ But I have a suspicion that it was really 
gotten up for a certain plucky little girl who 
has made good an impulsive boast about going 
to college this fall.” 

“ Do you mean that I am the guest of 
honor? ” Gerry asked astonished. 

“ I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised,” Miss 
Merrill said smilingly. 

And she was right. Late Friday afternoon, 
when the Houstons were dressing in a flurry 
of excitement, they heard the purring of a 
motor outside and Ted came running up to call 
breathlessly through the keyhole that Mr. 


Just One Party After Another 265 

England’s car and chauffeur were waiting 
outside for them, 

“ I’m so glad we won’t have to walk up that 
hill,” sighed Bess. “ I am afraid I could not 
have stood my new shoes. Gerry, you were 
such a darling to buy me these beautiful slip- 
pers,” and she thrust out her pretty little feet 
encased in a pair of black satin pumps with a 
low French heel that fit like a glove but which 
might have been too tight at the first wearing. 

“ It’s a pity if I couldn’t share something 
with my sister,” said Gerry, trying to be off- 
hand, but in her heart she was as happy as 
Elizabeth over being able to give her the pretty 
shoes, the gray silk dress, and a dear little 
beaded hand-bag, just large enough to hold her 
handkerchief. 

They set off in high spirits. It was all as 
Gerry had expected. She had been in Russ’s 
home before, but somehow it looked different 
at twilight as they swung up the winding drive 
between the old trees. Henry, the gardener, 
pressed for the time being into acting as butler, 
opened the door for them. Mr. England 
greeted them in the large hall from which a 
wide staircase led up one side to a gallery 


266 The Little Cockalorum 

which surrounded three sides of the hall, and 
onto which the doors of the bedrooms opened. 
A dainty room done in old-fashioned faded 
rose brocade was set aside for the women 
guests. 

“We look awfully good, don’t we?” whis- 
pered Elizabeth, regarding herself in the full- 
length mirror between the windows. “ Those 
pumps and that coral bead bag certainly do 
wonders, Gerry.” 

It was true. Elizabeth looked like an old- 
fashioned picture. She was so excited that a 
high color glowed in her cheeks; the gray silk 
with its skirt made quite full and standing out 
because of the succession of wide tucks was 
most becoming. Gerry had dressed her hair, 
parted it in the middle, brushed it until it 
shone, and then piled it high at the back, with 
an old amber comb to hold it in place. A long 
string of beautiful clouded amber beads, that 
had been bought as a gift to her mother by their 
seafaring uncle, hung about her neck. 

“ I guess if you are old enough to go to a 
real formal dinner party you are old enough to 
wear your hair up for once,” Gerry had said. 

The lovely blue crepe was Gerry’s dress for 


Just One Party After Another 267 

the occasion. They looked very sweet as they 
walked down the broad stairs a few minutes 
later. 

Russ with Dave beside him waited for them 
at the foot. “ Well, don’t the Misses Houston 
look fine? ” cried Russ, his eyes, though, on 
Elizabeth. Russ himself looked immaculate 
in evening clothes. But Gerry pounced on 
Dave. 

“Dave Manning! Aren’t you wonderful! 
Where did you get them? You should wear 
them all the time,” and she turned him round 
and round to get the effect of his neat dinner 
jacket and punctilious low white collar and 
black tie. 

“ Well, Russ told me I would need this 
4 soup and fish ’ outfit once in a while at col- 
lege, so I thought I’d begin to get used to it 
right away. Glad you like it ! ” 

“ You look like the hero of a movie,” said 
Gerry. “ Oh, wouldn’t it be fun to give a 

movie after dinner ” and then she stopped 

embarrassed, realizing that it was not her party, 
but that of the tall, quiet man back of her, that 
she was trying to arrange. 

The others soon arrived, Miss Merrill look- 


268 The Little Cockalorum 

ing adorable in blue lace, “ just the color of the 
«ky after sunset/’ Gerry whispered to her. 
There were other people Gerry had never met. 
It was all very exciting, and soon she was lead- 
ing the way into dinner on Mr. England’s arm, 
Russ following with Adine, Dave with Eliza- 
beth. 

There were tall white candles in old silver 
candlesticks, a long, low mound of orchids and 
roses, a first course of some delicious fruit mix- 
ture served in slender amber glasses, fish 
smothered in curiously seasoned sauce, all the 
olives one could eat, little silver dishes of salted 
nuts at each place, roast duckling, frozen pear 
salad, pastry in bewildering array to eat with 
the baked alaska at the end. And nobody was 
stiff, and everybody laughed softly, and told 
funny stories or adventures in foreign lands, 
and it was as it should have been. The women 
left the men to their cigarettes, and later coffee 
was served in the big hall from a service of 
queer red china that was worth many hundreds 
of dollars. 

“ The governor only uses it on rare occa- 
sions,” Russ whispered to Gerry, as they sat 
sipping their coffee in the corner of a lovely 


Just One Party After Another 269 

black velour davenport near the huge stone 
fireplace. The furniture in the hall had been 
made quite modern, though the other rooms 
had been left in their Victorian haircloth stiff- 
ness. 

Elizabeth had discovered the piano. She 
was playing softly and Dave was coaxing her 
to sing for them. Miss Merrill and Mr. Car- 
ruthers were standing talking in low tones at a 
long French window that opened out on the 
rose garden. The others were dancing in the 
ballroom across the hall. Geriy deposited her 
coffee cup carefully on the teakwood table be- 
side the couch. She allowed herself to sink 
into the soft depths of the velour cushions, 
threw her head back and shut her eyes. She 
did not realize how much a part of the picture 
she was herself, with her slim lithe figure that 
even in repose suggested action. 

“ What are you thinking about, Gerry? ” 
Russ asked her. 

“ I’m thinking how heavenly it all is, and 
how it is not only money that makes everything 
so wonderful, but education, and good taste, 
and kind hearts. I think I have the good taste, 
and I hope I have the kind heart, I am going 


270 The Little Cockalorum 

to have the education, and if I can’t make 
enough money to give some of these good 
things to the Houston family in the next ten 
years I’ll — I’ll be ashamed of myself.” 


CHAPTER XVII 


FOR BETTER OR WORSE 

In the days that followed her week of fes- 
tivities Geny hardly knew which was the more 
upon her mind, Miss Merrills wedding or 
Griffin college. Both took so much of her 
time that she hardly had a chance to think. 
Life was a jumble of clothes, ablative abso- 
lutes, frenzied errands over to Adine’s and the 
question of a new trunk. 

Miss Merrill called her over one evening 
after supper. “ Come up to my room, I want 
to show you something,” she whispered, as 
Gerry bounced up the steps of Aunt Letty’s 
side porch. 

Gerry’s heart missed a beat or two as she saw 
the three beautiful dresses spread upon Miss 
Merrill’s white coverlet. “ I had three sent on 
approval so we would be sure one would fit.” 

“ Oh, dear,” sighed Gerry, fingering a beau- 
tiful white net with garlands of tiny pink silk 
271 


272 The Little Cockalorum 

roses and blue ribbon bow-knots under the net 
ruffles. “ It is beautiful but it doesn’t look 
like me one bit. It’s too spiritual ; is that what 
I mean? ” she laughed. 

“ Try it on and see,” suggested Miss Mer- 
rill. It was far too large and would have 
needed a lot of altering, so they laid it aside. 
Next they tried a stiff little taffeta of change- 
able blue and green with tight bodice and full 
puffed skirt, but that was too tight. 

“ I feel like Goldilocks in the house of the 
Three Bears,” said Gerry, struggling with a 
hook that had caught in her hair. “ Now the 
third one ought to suit, according to the best of 
fairy tales.” 

It did. It suited so well that even quiet 
Miss Merrill clapped her hands in delight. 
Aunt Letty came running up-stairs to see what 
“ all the racket was about.” She found Gerry 
courtesying low to Miss Merrill in a frock that 
looked like a full-blown tea rose, beautiful pale 
cream petals of chiffon shading into a deep, 
pinkish yellow at the hem. It was adorable. 

“ How can I ever thank you for it?” she 
cried, stopping in her wild dance about the 
room to plant a kiss on Miss Merrill’s cheek. 


For Better or JVorse 273 

“ By always being just as happy and lovable 
as you are now,” answered Miss Merrill 
promptly. Then the three sat down to discuss 
the details of the wedding. At first Miss Mer- 
rill had planned to have it a very private affair 
at church, but Aunt Letty had coaxed so hard 
to be allowed to lend her house for the wonder- 
ful event that she and Mr. Carruthers had con- 
sented, more than willingly. The next ques- 
tion had been, would they have it outdoors or 
in the stately old parlor? 

“Of course it all depends upon the weather,” 
stated Gerry, “ and what time you want to 
have it.” 

“ I like the late afternoon when the shadows 
are long,” Miss Merrill said, “ and of course I 
would love a garden wedding.” 

“ Then why can’t we plan for outdoors, and 
if in the morning it looks cloudy or rains, then 
simply have it inside? We’ll bring Aunt 
Letty’s asters inside and set the small tables as 
we had planned on the porch and in the dining- 
room instead. That’s easy.” 

But they did not have to do either. As if 
even the weather man had a special interest in 
Miss Merrill, the wedding morning dawned 


274 Little Cockalorum 

clear as crystal and the sun soon turned the 
slightly chilly air warm and summery. Ted 
had proved himself a fine landscape gardener. 
He had mowed the lawn till it looked like vel- 
vet, had trimmed Aunt Letty’s bushes and 
hedges, had tied up her dear old-fashioned 
flowers and vines. There was an old rustic 
arched gateway from Aunt Letty’s dahlia walk 
into her tiny vegetable garden. It was a pretty 
gateway almost covered with a tangle of wis- 
teria that, of course, was not now in bloom. 
Gerry, who had constituted herself a sort of 
master of ceremonies and directed Ted’s activi- 
ties, pounced upon the gateway as the natural 
place for the wedding. 

“Ask Elizabeth for that old pair of shears 
and her ball of sugar string and we’ll see if we 
can’t turn this into a bower,” Gerry said, dis- 
patching Ted for tools. By cutting away 
some of the wisteria vines and twining the 
others, Gerry managed to uncover some of the 
rustic wood and got a very pretty effect. 

“ I can’t say that I like the vista,” she was 
saying, on her knees before the arbor and 
squinting out at some crooked bean-poles 
against a background of waving corn tassels. 


For Better or Worse 275 

“ You could put a screen at the back,” sug- 
gested Elizabeth, who had left her breakfast 
dishes to come over and see what Gerry was up 
to now. 

“I’ll think of something better than that,” 
Gerry said, her head on one side. It was at 
this point that Miss Merrill came down the 
dahlia-bordered path with a man so tall he 
made her look quite petite. So engrossed was 
Gerry with her problem that she did not hear 
them. They found her sitting on her heels 
with her hands folded in her lap as still as a 
statue. 

“ Miss Maid-of -Honor, I want to present 
the Best Man,” said Miss Merrill, bending over 
her. 

Gerry gave a start and looked up what 
seemed yards to see a very smart young man 
smiling down at her. 

“ I thought we had discovered some nature- 
worshipper,” he said, putting out a hand to 
help her to her feet. 

Now Gerry’s hand was very grimy, and the 
Best Man’s were beautifully white and clean, 
with long, slender fingers. Disregarding his 
help, Gerry jumped to her feet with an agility 


276 The Little Cockalorum 

that she had learned in gymnasium and thrust 
her hands behind her back. A high spot of 
color glowed in each cheek. She glanced down 
at her mussed gingham dress, and then at the 
immaculate man in white flannel trousers and 
blue serge coat with his light hair brushed to 
silky smoothness and a face that reminded her 
of the very handsome advertisements for col- 
lars she had seen in trolley cars. 

For one of the few times in her life Gerry 
Houston was confused. She could think of 
nothing to say, and the longer she tried the 
harder it seemed. Her tongue stuck to the 
roof of her mouth. She was furious with her- 
self. A fine way to start with a man she would 
have to see and be nice to all day. She threw 
a look of appeal at Miss Merrill, who, seeing 
her embarrassment, hurried to cover the 
pause. 

“ I brought Arthur out to help you. Now 
put him to work, and don’t be afraid of his 
white flannels. He tells me they are easily 
cleaned.” 

“ I had just found a wonderful idea,” stam- 
mered Gerry, “ and that was why I was so — so 
confused. My thoughts were so scattered it 


For Better or fForse 277 

was hard to round them up, you see/' she ended 
lamely. 

Mr. Arthur Carruthers nodded his head 
slowly. “ I know. Everyone who does good 
work concentrates so hard that it is difficult 
to come down to earth. I’ve been there. 
Now tell me your grand idea and how I can 
help.” 

Then Gerry explained how she needed a 
screen or lattice at the back of the bower and of 
how she was going to manufacture one with 
string and twine vines back and forth and up 
and down. He seemed to understand per- 
fectly. Gerry noted how neatly he worked, 
how graceful his hands were, how well he 
talked and drew her out. He was a lot like 
Mr. Carruthers, but so much younger, quite a 
boy in comparison. 

“ I like him a lot, and I am glad, because it 
would be awful to stand through a wedding 
ceremony with someone you didn’t like,” was 
Gerry’s conclusion when she went home for 
lunch. They had vined in the back of the 
arbor, had tied bunches of purple asters around 
the entrance, and she had left Mr. Carruthers 
promising to make some kind of a bell to hang 


278 The Little Cockalorum 

in the arch over the heads of the bride and 
groom. 

“ What is Father going to wear? ” Gerry 
asked Elizabeth, as she hastily gulped down a 
bowl of bread and milk. 

“ I washed his better suit,” said Elizabeth, 
half apologetically. 

“ That won't do at all,” said Gerry. “ Mr. 
Carruthers and his brother will wear striped 
trousers and cutaway coats, and purple asters 
in their buttonholes, and Father will look odd. 
Where’s his ‘ church suit,’ the one he always 
wears for Easter and Christmas, you know? ” 

“ It’s awful shiny, but maybe I can press it 
up with vinegar and sandpaper. Do you 
think we’d better? ” 

“ I most certainly do,” said Geny. 

So they sponged and pressed, Elizabeth first 
going through the pockets to see if there were 
any tubes of paint in them. “ He leaves them 
in everything, you know.” But all she found 
was a small folded piece of paper that she read 
with a puzzled expression and slipped quietly 
in her apron pocket. If Gerry saw it she was 
too busy to ask what Elizabeth had found. 

And so the Houstons got ready for the wed- 


For Better or Worse 279 

ding. Elizabeth had volunteered to sing, so 
Aunt Letty’s cottage organ was moved near a 
side window of the parlor and Adine remained 
inside with Elizabeth to play her accompani- 
ment. 

At that delightful hour when the evening 
shadows slant long across the grass, when a 
damp rich odor is given up by the earth, when 
all nature seems to be at peace and rest, Miss 
Merrill became Mrs. Carruthers in such a short 
time that Gerry could hardly believe when it 
was over. They had formed the little proces- 
sion in the parlor, Gerry walking first alone, 
then Miss Merrill on Mr. Houston’s arm. 

Gerry was proud of her father, proud of the 
graceful way he gave over the bride to the 
groom waiting with his best man and the min- 
ister at the improvised arbor, glad she and 
Elizabeth had worked so hard with the old suit 
that he carried so well. 

Miss Merrill looked adorable in a soft, cling- 
ing gown of white silk, the piece of jade glow- 
ing softly on her bosom. She wore a short veil 
made from a rare old shawl of yellowed silk 
lace. Gerry had helped her to arrange it, and 
had lent her two of her best gold lace pins with 


280 The Little Cockalorum 

their tiny tui’quoise settings to hold it over each 
ear,, so that the bride should have, 

* ‘ Something old and something new, 
Something borrowed, something blue.” 

And Miss Merrill had given her maid of 
honor the customary gift, a dear little silver 
locket with curious markings that were Rus- 
sian, the bride said. 

Mr. Carruthers had found it abroad among 
a lot of things dropped by some Russian refu- 
gees into an old well. “ So, you see, it has a 
history, my dear, and I thought you would like 
it so much better than something new and 
shiny.” 

It now fell up and down upon Gerry’s 
bosom as she listened through the late after- 
noon stillness to the low words of the minister 
and the lower answers of the bride and groom. 
Then through the peacefulness came Eliza- 
beth’s clear voice in the lovely sobbing strains 
of “ Oh, Promise Me.” So softly did she sing 
that her voice hardly seemed to disturb the 
quiet solemnity of the ceremony. 

Gerry could feel tears gather in her eyes and 
a lump rise in her throat and yet she was not 


281 


For Better or IForse 

sad. Beauty will do that to those who love it. 
And then it was all over. The friends who 
had stood quietly by, the Sewells, the Eng- 
lands, the Schofields, the Mannings, Dr. Hon- 
eywell, dear old Aunt Letty in crackling black 
silk, — all who had learned to know and love 
Miss Merrill — were crowding up to shower 
good wishes upon Mrs. Carruthers. 

“ It seems so funny that just three minutes 
can change you from Miss to Mrs. forever,” 
Gerry found herself saying to the best man, 
who was standing by her side. 

“ You sound as if you didn’t think much of 
the second title,” he said, the corners of his eyes 
crinkling in amusement. 

“ Oh, I think it’s perfectly fine, but I’m not 
the least bit interested in it, not for years and 
years and years. And now I want you to 
meet the nicest boy, Dave Manning; he’s going 
to Tech this week and I want you to tell him 
all about your Alma Mater.” 

It was a wonderful wedding. Supper was 
served at the small tables on the lawn, hot but- 
tered biscuits from under snowy napkins, 
chicken salad, coffee, tiny cream cakes and a 
marvelous frozen custard, all of Aunt Letty ’s 


282 The Tittle Cockalorum 

making. At the bride’s table was an impres- 
sive cake which she cut in the traditional man- 
ner. To the joy of everyone Elizabeth drew 
the ring in her piece as a sign she would be the 
next bride, and blushed at the teasing so pret- 
tily that Russell said she wouldn’t have to 
practice a bit for her part of “ blushing bride.” 

When it was cool they wandered in to 
Aunt Letty’s parlor. Russell had obligingly 
brought his phonograph over in his machine so 
they could dance, for no wedding is complete 
without dancing. Up-stairs Gerry helped the 
bride into her beautiful new traveling suit of 
silky brown velour, with its high collar of 
golden beaver. 

“ I’d miss you terribly, if I had time,” Gerry 
said, with her farewell kiss. “ You’ll come 
down to Griffin to see me, won’t you? ” 

“ Yes, indeed,” said the new Mrs. Carruth- 
ers, snapping the clasps on her traveling bag, 
“ and at Thanksgiving we’ll look for you home 
for our house-warming. Don’t forget! ” 

They were off in a shower of rice and con- 
fetti. Gradually the crowd drifted homeward. 
The wedding was over and Griffin suddenly 
seemed very near indeed. 


CHAPTER XVIII 


A SCRAP OF PAPER 

“ I hate to wake you, Gerry.” Elizabeth 
leaned over her sister and shook her gently. 
Gerry sat bolt upright in bed blinking through 
sleepy eyelids. 

“ What’s the matter? ” she yawned. Then, 
“That’s right; glad you called me. I have 
steen hundred things to do to-day. What 
makes you look so funny, Bess? You look as 
though you had seen a ghost.” 

Elizabeth did look strange as she sat on the 
edge of a chair fingering a small piece of paper. 
Then she went over and softly closed the door 
into the hall. “ It’s this,” she said, handing 
the paper to Gerry. “ I found it yesterday in 
Father’s coat pocket when we were pressing his 
suit. I didn’t want to spoil your day, but it 
sounds as if something would have to be done 
right away, doesn’t it? ” 

Gerry’s eyes traveled quickly over the few 
words of writing. It was the renewal for six 
283 


284 "The Little Cockalorum 

months of a note for five hundred dollars which 
their father, John Houston, had evidently 
promised to pay Mr. England six months back. 
The renewal would fall due to-morrow. 

“ Oh, Bess! ” Gerry gasped, “ do you sup- 
pose Father knows and won’t tell us ? ” 

“No, I think he has forgotten it entirely. 
He hasn’t had the suit on since Easter when he 
went to church, remember, and walked home 
with Mr. England. Whatever shall we do? 
How is he going to pay it, or do you think Mr. 
England will give him more time? ” 

“ Oh, we couldn’t let him accept any more 

from Mr. England, even if ” Her voice 

trailed off into silence. She sat staring at the 
small piece of paper, her right hand mechani- 
cally twisting a long lock of hair on her fore- 
head, a thing she always did when very much 
absorbed in anything, and which no one had 
ever been able to break her of doing. Finally 
she raised her head and tossed it as if about to 
say something. Then she sank down again in 
a little heap in silence, with only the continual 
twisting and untwisting of the long brown lock 
to indicate that her mind was very busy indeed. 
At last she pulled herself together, gave her 


A Scrap of Paper 285 

shoulders a little shake, and said resolutely, 
“ Well, there’s only one thing to do, of course. 
Make F ather pay it. He still has six hundred 

dollars in the bank ” 

“ Oh, Gerry, give up Griffin when you have 
worked so hard for it? ” Elizabeth’s voice 
sounded as horrified as if she herself had had 
the front door of Griffin banged in her face. 

“ What of it? I guess the honor of the 
Houston family is just as important, lots more 
so, than my going to college. Fine specimen I 
would be, wouldn’t I, if people could point to 
me years from now and say, ‘ Oh, yes, she’s a 
college graduate, but she comes of a shiftless 
family that never pay their debts.’ Besides, 
Bess* Griffin all along has seemed more like a 
fairy castle rising out of clouds than anything 
of brick and stone that I would actually touch 
and walk and sleep and study in. It has been 
too good to be true, this last week or so. Now, 
I’ll go find Father and thresh this little affair 
out with him. Remember, not a word about 
it, or about Griffin after this. I’m through, 
conquered. I’ll never boast again! ” 

But, though Gerry sounded brave and cheer- 
ful, her heart was lead within her. It was all 


286 The Little Cockalorum 

she could do to keep her lips from quivering 
and her voice from trembling as she called to 
her father from the ladder to the Roost. 

“ What am I interrupting now? ” she said, 
trying to sound natural and cheerful. 

“ Oh, nothing very much,” replied her father 
from behind his easel; but Gerry noticed that 
as she approached he moved his canvas so it 
stood face to the wall, and did not make any 
attempt to show it to her. “ Just touching up 
some old things,” he explained casually. 

Gerry had hoped he would talk for a few 
minutes so she could introduce the subject of 
the note easily, but he stood waiting to hear 
what had brought her up to his retreat. She 
was forced to put the piece of paper in his hand 
and turn away to hide the tears that would 
come into her eyes. 

“ Where did you find this? ” she heard her 
father say in a low voice. 

“ Yesterday, in your best suit when we were 
pressing it. Elizabeth kept it until to-day so 
as not to worry us. Father, is it true, do you 
still owe Mr. England five hundred dollars and 
is it due to-morrow? ” 

Mr. Houston passed the back of his hand 


A Scrap of Paper 287 

over his eyes as if trying to brush away some- 
thing that befogged his vision. “ I can’t im- 
agine How could I possibly? It seems 

so improbable ” he kept repeating over 

and over. Then, “ Yes, Gerry, it’s true, 
though I had forgotten until this minute that 
the debt had never been settled. I should 
never have to deal with money; I am not ca- 
pable, not responsible.” 

“ But it’s easy to forget, Daddy, when you 
have so many other things on your mind,” put 
in Gerry, her heart aching for her father in his 
bewilderment. 

“ Let’s see ! Let’s see ! I’ll go right over 
and see England ; I have no doubt he will give 
me another extension, and then perhaps ” 

“ Father Houston, you will do nothing of 
the sort! When you go to see Mr. England 
you’ll lay upon his desk your check for five 
hundred dollars. Don’t you see? You have 
six hundred in the bank this minute. Now lis- 
ten to me; don’t say a word until I have fin- 
ished. It is not my money. It is yours. It 
was your furniture; I just did the selling. I 
was a very foolish girl to boast to Aunt Geral- 
dine the way I did, or I could be going to col- 


288 The Tittle Cockalorum 

lege in great style without all this fuss and 
worry. But I’m not sorry. It’s taught me a 
lesson. I’ll think twice before I speak here- 
after. Besides, I did what I set out to do; I 
made the money and had all the fun of it, so 
I’m satisfied. After all, what are four years 
at college, if you’re going to be an interior 
decorator? Pure waste ! Now we are not go- 
ing to say another word about it, you are going 
to use that money to pay this debt, and we will 
all be happy that we have each other and 
that the Houston name and honor is as 
good as gold, even if we aren’t college grads. 
There! ” 

With a frantic hug, she was off down the 
ladder. She could not have trusted herself any 
longer. If she had cried, all her arguments 
would have gone for naught. She thought her 
father had raised his head proudly at the end 
as if he had intended following her advice. 
She would wait until to-morrow and if he did 
not have the money ready for Mr. England 
then she would talk to him again. By that 
time she would have more control over herself, 
too. Just now all she felt was a blind desire to 
go far away and hide herself, and with the 


A Scrap of Paper 289 

same instinct that a wounded animal drags it- 
self far in the heart of a thicket, Gerry stum- 
bled blindly across the fields to the river to a 
secluded spot known only to herself. 

The fact that neither Mr. Houston nor 
Gerry was at the luncheon table did not worry 
Elizabeth in the least, because she never knew 
what impulses this erratic family of hers would 
follow. She was preserving the few quinces 
from the small stunted tree at the back of the 
garden and was glad that she did not have to 
stop and bother with lunch. 

It was a nice warm afternoon; bees droned 
over the late flowers in Aunt Letty’s garden. 
The smell of boiling quinces filled the air. 
Elizabeth sang softly the “ Oh, Promise Me ” 
that had accompanied the wedding ceremony 
the day before. She was picturing Miss Mer- 
rill, or rather Mrs. Carruthers, on board the 
boat that was carrying them up into Canadian 
waters. So lost was she in her day-dreams that 
she did not hear a machine stop at the gate, nor 
footsteps on the front walk until the large old- 
fashioned knocker, that scarcely anyone used, 
went pounding through the house. 

“Who on earth !” exclaimed Elizabeth, 


290 The Tittle Cockalorum 

smoothing her hair in the cracked mirror of the 
side hall, and removing her apron as she went 
to the front door. When she had thrown it 
open she saw a large woman standing tapping 
one foot on the marble slab and surveying the 
front garden which looked rather tangled in 
the September sunlight. 

“ Humph !” said this magnificent person, 
sweeping by Elizabeth, and scraping off with 
one finger some of the peeling white paint from 
the front door as she did so. “ Geraldine 
home? ” she asked, looking up the broad front 
stairs as if expecting a welcoming committee to 
rush down upon her. 

Then Elizabeth realized who this was. Aunt 
Geraldine! Hastily she threw open the door 
of the drawing-room they seldom used, wishing 
at the same time that she had polished up the 
brass andirons and fire pieces as she had in- 
tended to do that morning. 

This was a fine old room. The dropped 
Venetian blinds let a cool green light filter 
through but did not show up the faded damask 
of the old chair seats, the knicks in the tall desk 
and highboy, or the worn spots in the old car- 
pet. It had a mysterious, half musty odor 


A Scrap of Paper 291 

from the dried rose leaves in the Canton jar on 
the mantelpiece. 

“ Heavens, child! Open the windows, let us 
have some air and sunlight,” sniffed Aunt Ger- 
aldine. Elizabeth tremblingly obeyed, then 
ran off to find Gerry, leaving their aunt stand- 
ing directly in the middle of the floor, and los- 
ing not one detail of the shabby old room. 

But Gerry was not to be found. Her partly 
packed trunk stood open, clothes and books 
were tossed over the room as if someone in a 
frenzy had been looking for something. Eliza- 
beth did not want to call too loudly as she went 
through the house, out to the Roost, noticed 
that her father was not there either, and was 
about to give up and go back to Aunt Geral- 
dine when an open window in the attic caught 
her eye. She climbed the steep steps and there, 
sure enough, was Gerry. Coming back from 
the river a short time before, she had pulled a 
lot of old pillows into the embrasure that the 
eaves made for a low window. She was wiping 
her eyes and turning the pages of a well-worn 
copy of “ Ivanhoe.” 

“ Gerry! ” Elizabeth called from the stairs. 
“ I’ve looked all over for you.” 


292 


The Little Cockalorum 

“ Just trying to drown my own woe in Re- 
becca’s/’ sniffed Gerry. “ What’s the big 
rush? ” 

“ Guess who’s here, waiting to see you down- 
stairs in the parlor, turning up her nose at 
everything, and scraping the paint off our 
front door? ” 

“Aunt Geraldine, I bet a cookie! ” answered 
Gerry, scrambling to her feet. “ What do you 
suppose brought her? 

“ Oh dear, oh dear! Why did she come? I 
can’t tell her I am not going to college after all. 
She’ll have a chance to crow over me now.” 

“ Do you want me to go back and tell her 
you’re not at home? ” 

“ No, I’ll face the music! It’s going to be 
fun. Tell her I’m dressing; I’ll be down in a 
minute.” 

Ten minutes later, Gerry walked into the old 
drawing-room with a quiet dignity of manner 
that astonished Elizabeth, who had been trying 
vainly to entertain the impatient aunt. An 
occasional grunt or blunt question was all she 
could evoke from her. Now Gerry came for- 
ward gracefully, her hand out, saying: 

“ This is nice, Aunt Geraldine! Of course 


A Scrap of Paper 293 

you are staying for dinner, or perhaps for a 
few days? ” 

“ Just passing through Oxford/’ said Aunt 
Geraldine, planting an awkward kiss on her 
niece’s forehead, “ and thought I would stop 
and see how you were getting along. Things 
look pretty shabby. Hope you are going to 
do what you said, go to college and get away 
from it all? ” 

Gerry slowly shook her head, but there was 
not a hint of apology in her voice as she said, 
“ No, I’m not — that is not just now, although 
my trunk is partly packed and my application 
has been at Griffin for some time. In fact, I 
just changed my mind this morning, Aunt 
Geraldine. You see I want to be an interior 
decorator, and four years of college seem four 
years absolutely wasted. That is what I told 
Father this morning when I tried to persuade 
him — I mean when he tried to persuade me — 
to stick to my intention and go to Griffin this 
fall.” 

“ Humph! ” Aunt Geraldine’s shrewd eyes 
were searching Gerry’s face. “ Decorator! 
That’s just a fad! College won’t hurt you. 
Afterward you’ll maybe feel differently. 


294 The Little Cockalorum 

Now I’ll tell you what I came down here pre- 
pared to do. I was afraid you were talking on 
empty air back there in June, so I came down 
to repeat my offer. I’ll send you to Vassar — 
provided I can get you in there at this late date 
— dress you, give you a fair allowance for four 
years to get you away from these surroundings 
and this shiftless atmosphere. What do you 
say? Hurry up, I can’t wait long.” 

A red spot burned in Gerry’s cheeks. She 
felt all at once furious with this despotic old 
aunt, yet grateful and eager to accept. She 
did not have the impulse now as in June to 
throw back her head and boast vainly that she 
could do it all herself. She was beaten. She 
had had to acknowledge that this afternoon 
down by the river when she was fighting things 
out with herself. She could not do the impossi- 
ble things she always thought she could. But 
she could still go to college if she wanted to. 
Aunt Geraldine did not need the money. It 
would please her, she was lonely. It was a 
temptation, and for a few seconds that seemed 
hours, she wavered. Then, almost to her own 
surprise, she heard herself saying quietly, with- 
out any fireworks or excitement : 


A Scrap of Paper 295 

“ Thank you again, Aunt Geraldine, you are 
very, very kind. I appreciate your offer, even 
if I can’t accept it. It is not exactly a ques- 
tion of money, as I thought I had made plain 
to you. Father has the cash in bank this min- 
ute to finance me for at least one year in Grif- 
fin. But — but, well, why argue? Here comes 
Elizabeth with something to drink and some of 
her good chocolate cake. You’ll love her choco- 
late cake.” 

But Aunt Geraldine did not wait for choco- 
late cake or anything else. Snatching her 
hand-bag and gloves from the table she 
marched to the door. “All I have to say,” she 
paused there dramatically to fling over her 
shoulder, “ is that you are a very, very foolish 
girl. Good-bye! ” 

As they heard the engine of the car whirr at 
the curb and then wheel quietly off down the 
street, Gerry sank back on the old sofa, thrust 
her feet out in front of her and said: 

“ Phew, that was a close shave, Bess ! I al- 
most gave in.” 

But Elizabeth, not understanding, only 
shook her head. 


CHAPTER XIX 


LOST, A FATHER 

It took more than the loss of a year at col- 
lege and a visit from a disagreeable old aunt to 
keep Gerry Houston awake at nights, and so, 
after tossing around for an hour or two, she 
settled into a deep slumber. She and Eliza- 
beth had gone to bed early, and the night was 
cold and Ted had not brought in the fire-wood. 
He was off in a neighboring town playing with 
the junior basket-ball team and would stay all 
night with one of his chums. Mr. Houston 
was not home for supper, which did not worry 
the two girls, as he was very apt to tramp far 
these autumn days and not get home till after 
dark. 

And so it was with a start that Gerry woke 
to find Elizabeth bending over her with a lamp 
in her hands. 

“ Gerry,” she whispered hoarsely, “ Father 
did not come home. It’s after four o’clock. I 
296 


Lost , a Father 297 

woke up and went to see if he had enough 
covers, and his bed has not been slept in. 
Whatever shall we do? ” 

Gerry was wide awake and groping for her 
slippers under the bed. “ Maybe he is work- 
ing or has fallen asleep out in the Roost,” was 
her first suggestion. But after picking their 
way across the dew-soaked garden with an old 
lantern for light, and searching the studio in 
all its dim, ghostly corners, they came back to 
the house and sat shivering on the living-room 
sofa wondering what to do next. 

“ If it weren’t the middle of the night we 
might start out looking for him, or notify the 
police, or — something,” cried Elizabeth, pa- 
thetically. Gerry sat staring straight ahead 
of her with wide eyes, trying to think of possi- 
bilities that might turn their fears to foolish 
worrying. “ He might have wandered farther 
than usual and got lost. Maybe he went up to 
Mr. England’s and stayed all night — oh no, 
that is foolish; they wouldn’t ask him, and he 
wouldn’t stay without telling us. Maybe he’s 
sick somewhere, or hurt. Oh, if it would only 
get daylight so we could do something! ” So 
they sat and waited, their arms around each 


298 "The Little Cockalorum 

other and the old knit couch cover pulled over 
their shaking knees. Back in Gerry’s mind 
was a terrible thought that she did not voice to 
Elizabeth. She felt sure that her father’s dis- 
appearance had something to do with that note. 
She was afraid that maybe it had turned his 
mind, he had seemed to take it so dazedly, so 
terribly hard. 

The windows of the living-room began to be 
dark gray squares instead of black ones, then 
the outlines of the trees in the garden could be 
seen. Elizabeth stirred and made a fire in the 
stove and put on her coffee-pot, “ in case he 
should come in wet and cold,” she told Gerry. 

Gerry dressed, tried to gulp down some hot 
coffee and dry bread and was off to do she did 
not know what. Mr. England was the first 
one on her mind. It was just seven o’clock 
when she rang the bell on the England door. 
A sleepy servant opened it, said Mr. England 
was still in bed, but she would call him if it 
were urgent. Gerry paced up and down the 
long hall that had been so beautiful a few 
nights ago. Now in the dull light of the misty 
morning it looked deserted, colorless. It 
seemed hours, but it was only minutes, until 


Lost, a Father 299 

Mr. England came down the stairs in a dark 
dressing-gown. Russell followed on his heels. 

“No, your father was not here yesterday, 
my dear, nor at my office. I had forgotten 
about that note entirely, and it is not a matter 
of life and death that it should be paid to-day, 
or to-morrow, or next week. I know your fa- 
ther, and that he keeps his word. There, there, 
don't cry ! ” for at his kind words Gerry's 
tightly strung nerves gave way and she col- 
lapsed completely. “ Get dressed, Russell, 
and I'll have the car out. Then maybe we can 
do something for this poor child." 

Gerry has said since that Russell dressed 
that morning like a fireman, for it did not 
seem five minutes before he was ready and the 
big car at the door. They left Mr. England at 
the 'phone getting in touch with the police of 
several neighboring towns and cities. 

“ Where do you think your father might 
have gone? " asked Russell as they slipped 
down the long driveway into the country road. 

“He liked the river best," said Gerry; 
“ we'd better try the river roads first." 

So they rode along in silence, Gerry’s eyes 
flashing from the gray road ahead to search the 


The Little Cockalorum 


3 °° 

shadows of the wooded banks along the sides. 
They covered as far as any human being could 
walk in a day, explored side roads and inviting 
paths, and turned back to town discouraged, 
Gerry’s heart a stone within her. 

“ You are a dear, Russell, but I can’t think 
of anything else we can do. We’ll have to 
wait now and let the police see what — what 
they can find,” she ended weakly. “ Will you 
drop me at home? You haven’t had a bite to 
eat ; come in and let Elizabeth give you some- 
thing.” 

With lagging footsteps they entered the side 
door. Voices, high-pitched and joyous, came 
to them from the living-room. 

“ Listen,” cried Gerry, clutching Russell’s 
sleeve. “It’s Father, it’s Father! Oh, Fa- 
ther, you darling, you have given us such a 
scare,” she screamed, bursting into the room 
and throwing herself in his arms, kissing him 
wildly. “ Where have you been? ” 

Mr. Houston turned to Elizabeth. “ Tell 
her all about it, daughter.” 

“ Gerry, Father’s been to New York, and 
he’s sold a lot of pictures, and we’re rich, al- 
most rich!” Rut Elizabeth could get no 


Lost, a Father 301 

further. The prospect of ready money for the 
needs of the house, of not having to patch and 
scheme and use oleo instead of butter was too 
much for her. Mr. Houston had to tell his 
own story. 

“ I suddenly made up my mind yesterday 
morning after you left me, Gerry, that I must 
do something to get out of this financial diffi- 
culty. It wasn’t fair to take your money, and 
yet that note of your father’s must be settled 
to-day, Russell, or I could never hold up my 
head again. So I gathered together a few of 
my smaller pictures and sketches and took with 
me a list of art editors that Miss Merrill had 
given me one day. I caught the ten o’clock 
train to New York, but didn’t have time to tell 
you anything about it, for nobody seemed to be 
around when I left. Besides, I expected to 
get home last night, but I met some old friends 
and they insisted on my dining with them, so I 
missed the last train. 

“ I must say I met with the most phenome- 
nal success. The men I interviewed were gen- 
tlemen and artists. They were sympathetic 
about my work, seemed to find something new 
and valuable in it. I sold the ‘ Willow Tree ’ 


302 The Little Cockalorum 

outright, Gerry, and another picture, the first 
place I went. I have their check right here for 
five hundred dollars. They are going to use 
them both as covers on one of their summer 
numbers. I find they like the brilliant color I 
have been using, and the decorative composi- 
tions like the ‘ Willow Tree ’ rather than the 
landscapes, though they are considering using 
all of them at some of the magazines where I 
stopped. But the first one,” and he mentioned 
a well-known magazine, “ asked me if I would 
consider a contract for a year’s covers, al- 
though that is not settled yet.” 

He stopped suddenly at this point and sur- 
veyed the little group around him, Gerry sit- 
ting back on her heels with hands clasped as if 
listening to a fairy tale; Elizabeth, a cup and 
saucer in her hands, her eyes alight, a smile on 
her face as if seeing visions; Russell, his feet 
spread wide apart, his hands in his pockets, as 
interested as if this had been his own father’s 
tale. His eyes clouded. Now he could give 
to this little family of his the things they should 
have if he could just keep at it. Why hadn’t 
he done it sooner? Gerry had always been 
right. Her practical sense had always been 



“I Sold the 'Willow Tree' Outright" 























































Lost , a Father 303 

seeing how he could turn his beloved art to 
their account. She was wiser than he. And 
as he looked at her, he seemed to see her moth- 
er’s eager eyes shining from her face. 

“ Won’t Ted be glad when he hears it all! ” 
exclaimed Elizabeth, heaping her father’s plate 
with smoking hot cakes. “ Now he can have 
his new sweater, and a pair of skates this win- 
ter, and a set of instruments for that mechan- 
ical drawing course he wants to take at nights.” 

“ Hold on, hold on, not too fast, daughter. 
Everything is not so sure as all that. They 
may not take as many of the pictures as I 
think, or, what is more likely, I may not be able 
to turn them out as quickly as these younger 
men. I am a slow worker. However, I think 
there are better days ahead for the Houstons.” 

And right here a great big sob from Gerry 
turned their attention to her. 

“ Why, Gerry dear, what is the matter? ” 

“ I feel, I feel,” said Gerry, laying her face 
on her father’s knee, “ I feel such a worm, such 
a pig!” 

“ Impossible, Gerry,” laughed Russ; “ can’t 
be done. Pigs and worms aren’t even fourth 
cousins.” 


304 "The Little Cockalorum 

“ I’m so ashamed,” Gerry went on unheed- 
ing his sally; “ here I was killing myself and 
everybody else this summer to get together 
some money just for myself, and now that Fa- 
ther goes and sells the results of his years of 
work all he thinks about is us, and Elizabeth 
thinks of Ted, and — and oh, I’m just a self- 
centered miserable wretch.” 

“Why, Gerry Houston, you silly girl! 
That’s not so! ” protested Elizabeth. Her fa- 
ther did not answer, but ran his fingers through 
the short glossy brown locks on his knee. 

“ You’re wrong, daughter,” he said slowly. 
“ Back of all has been you, you know, your 
faith, your energy, your — well, your spunk. 
Don’t you suppose it was your sacrifice, when 
you willingly gave up your money for college 
for me to repay that note, that made me 
ashamed of myself and sent me into the market 
to sell my wares? I would have been sitting 
out there in the Roost this morning daubing 
away at nothing, if it hadn’t been for you! ” 

“ Gerry, is that true? ” cried Russ. Gerry 
did not answer, but Elizabeth nodded an 
affirmative. 

“ Well, all I’ve got to say is that I’m mighty 


Lost , a Father 305 

proud to know a family like this, an artist of 
your ability, sir, a spunky kid like Gerry, and 
a girl who can make hot-cakes like Bess. Only 
three more, cook. Then I’ll be off and tell 
Father that all is well, and that the Houstons 
are getting ready to move into Easy Street.” 

“ Tell him, also, that I will drop into his 
office in a few hours to satisfy that note, will 
you, Russell? ” 

Then Gerry raised her head and gave her 
father a look of the deepest admiration and 
pride. “ Father, you’re a wonder! ” she said. 


CHAPTER XX 


GOOD-BYE OXFORD! 

The Houston house was in an uproar. 
Down in the living-room Gerry’s old trunk lay 
partly packed, clothes, books, pictures, pack- 
ages were scattered in every available spot. 
Ted was rushing around back and forth be- 
tween the house, Aunt Letty’s and the shops, 
on every kind of an errand. He came in now 
staggering under an armful of old pillows. 

“Aunt Letty says you can have these and 
welcome. She guesses college girls need lots 
of pillows for their cozy-corners.” 

“ The darling,” cried Gerry, raising her 
head out of the depths of her trunk, where she 
was trying vainly to sandwich a beautifully 
framed copy of “ The Pot of Basil,” a gift 
from Mr. England, between the folds of her 
soft dresses. “ I certainly will need them, 
and oh, look, I can put the picture between 
them. But they won’t go in my trunk, or if 
306 


Good-Bye Oxford ! 307 

they do, I won’t be able to get my clothes in. 
What on earth shall I do? ” 

“ Pack a box/’ suggested Ted. 

“ Better yet,” said Mr. Houston, from the 
doorway where he had been watching the pack- 
ing process with amusement. “ There’s that 
old chest of your mother’s that stands in my 
room. I never use it, but I think Elizabeth 
keeps linens in it. Can’t we let her have that, 
Elizabeth ?” 

Elizabeth agreed, saying she guessed she 
could find room in Gerry’s old bureau for the 
linens, so Ted and their father brought down 
the chest to hold Gerry’s overflow. It was a 
beautiful old piece of carved mahogany with a 
sliding tray and a small secret compartment 
that had always fascinated them as children. 

“ It will be marvelous to have that in my 
room,” Gerry said, packing Aunt Letty’s pil- 
lows in the bottom. 

“ Is Adine taking as much as this? ” queried 
her father. 

“ No, she is going to buy everything she 
needs after she gets there,” Gerry explained, 
“ but I will have to count my pennies carefully, 
and, besides, it is so much nicer to have some of 


308 The Little Cockalorum 

the things from home about one. Oh, do you 
suppose I will get homesick? ” she suddenly 
cried. 

“Not any more than we will get Gerry- 
sick/’ said Ted, giving her a pinch as he passed 
her with an armful of books. 

“ Whenever you get homesick just think of 
what you might have been doing if you hadn’t 
gotten the money and couldn’t have gone to 
college at all,” offered Elizabeth, the philoso- 
pher. 

“ That’s wisdom,” said a voice at the door; 
and there stood Aunt Letty, her arms full of 
jars, and boxes, and glasses. “And here’s 
some more things to keep you from getting 
homesick. Pickles, jelly — the apple with ge- 
ranium that you like, Gerry, — and a couple 
wee jars of preserves. Girls like those things, 
I know.” 

“ Where on earth did you ever get the dear 
little jars and glasses? ” cried Gerry. 

“ Well,” drawled Aunt Letty, “ you see, 
when I was preservin’ during the summer you 
were hustlin’ around after that money you 
needed, and I thinks to myself, ‘ That child 
don’t ever fall down on anything she sets her 


Good-Bye Oxford / 309 

heart and mind on, so I guess I’d better make 
her a taster or two to put in her trunk when she 
goes away this fall/ and I picked out all the 
little things and filled them for you, child. 
Now don’t go eat them all at once,” she added 
in mock anger. 

“ I’ll keep them under padlock and key,” 
promised Gerry, soberly. 

And so the packing went on. The trunk 
grew to alarming proportions, clothes rose in 
a tower high above the humped lid. The chest 
was packed and locked, and Ted and his father 
were sewing a large canvas cover over it to pro- 
tect its surface before crating it. Gerry 
dropped the lid on her trunk at last with a sigh. 
“ There,” she said, “ it’s packed anyway. Now 
to get it shut ! ” But the lid bounced merrily 
on top of the clothes and the lock escaped its 
destination by at least four inches. 

“ Sit on it,” said Ted. 

Gerry sat. She called Elizabeth. Ted 
tugged. Gerry jumped up and down upon it, 
and it seemed as if they might make the lock 
snap shut when suddenly there was a crackling, 
and the lid, with a piece of wood from the back, 
went toppling off onto the floor. 


310 The Little Cockalorum 

Gerry stood silent for a minute, and then 
she sat down and laughed until the teal’s 
came. 

“ I can’t see that it is anything to laugh 
about,” said Elizabeth. “ What are you going 
to do? ” 

“ I know, it’s a tragedy, but I can’t help 
laughing. Somehow it seems like the last 
straw to keep me away from Griffin. Ted, 
you’ll have to go down to Becket’s and ask 
Dave to hunt up a good, strong wooden box, 
I guess. I would like at least to enter Griffin 
in style; the old trunk was bad enough but it 
looked — well, shabbily genteel. The box will 
be worse, but it can’t be helped! ” 

“ You’ll have to hurry,” added Elizabeth; 
“ the expressman was to be here at ten ! ” And 
then as the sound of a heavy wagon stopping 
at the gate could be heard, “ Why, here he is 
now! ” 

Gerry gazed ruefully at the broken trunk. 
It was to have gone with her on her ticket on 
the train that left at four-fifteen. Now she 
would have to let them send the box by express 
after she left. But even this catastrophe could 
not make her sad. She would be at Griffin to- 


Good-Bye Oxford! 311 

night, and that was the only thing that really 
mattered now. 

“ Did you tell him we wouldn’t need him 
now? ” she asked Elizabeth, as the latter came 
back from the front door. 

“ Yes, but he said he was coming in any- 
how,” said Elizabeth, the ghost of a twinkle in 
her eye. Gerry caught the note of excitement 
in her voice and looked up quickly. 

“ Right in here,” Elizabeth was saying, and 
holding back the door for the expressman to 
deposit something black and shining on the liv- 
ing-room floor. It was a trunk, a full-sized 
wardrobe trunk, and on one end, in neat red 
letters, were the initials, “ G. B. H., Oxford, 
Mass.” 

“ Why, it’s for me! Did you know? ” cried 
Gerry. “ Where on earth could it have come 
from? And just in the nick of time! ” Then 
to the grinning expressman, “ Could you come 
back in an hour, do you suppose? ” 

“ Sure, Miss, I’ll stop when I finish my 
rounds. I won’t let that nice piece of baggage 
miss the four-fifteen. You can rely on me! ” 

Gerry’s hands shook so that she could hardly 
unfasten the heavy brass clasps that held it so 


312 The Tittle Cockalorum 

firmly. Who could have sent it? Her father? 
Adine? Dr. Honeywell? She tried the clasp 
but it was not locked. She pressed it. The 
lock flew open, and she parted the sides of the 
trunk. 

“ Oh, Elizabeth! Isn’t it a dream? Look, 
all lined with blue velvet. See the tiny draw- 
ers, the laundry bag, the shoe boxes, and this 
large one for hats, just like Miss Merrill’s, only 
nicer even.” She was going through it all, 
sliding the hangers, slipping out the drawers. 

“ Why, I believe there is something in the 
laundry bag! ” she said, feeling a soft bunch 
that was more than paper stuffing. 

And then there fell at her feet the most ador- 
able fur neckpiece, and cuffs to match, of beau- 
tifully marked squirrel, and on the fur was 
pinned a note which Gerry read excitedly as 
follows : 

Deau Niece: 

I hear that you are going to college after 
all. I don’t like the idea of your taking that 
disgraceful little trunk with you, so thought I 
would send this along. After all I can’t help 
admiring your independence. You’re the only 
one of the Houstons that has any get up and 


Good-Bye Oxford ! 313 

go anyway. Keep it up. The furs will make 
your last winter’s coat look fairly respectable, 
I think. If you need anything else let me 
know, though I don’t suppose you will. 

Your loving aunt, 

Geraldine Bashford. 

“Poor Aunt Geraldine!” sighed Gerry, 
passing the note over to Elizabeth. “ She’s a 
good sport, and I suppose she really likes me 
a little bit. I’ve always thought she pitied me 
more than she cared for me, but this doesn’t 
sound like it, does it? And how do you sup- 
pose she found out about my going to college 
after all? ” 

“ Why, Father said he met one of the Bash- 
fords on the street when he was in the city and 
she must have spread the news,” suggested 
Elizabeth. 

“ How lucky ! And how much luckier that 
the old trunk broke just when it did, or I might 
have had it stuffed and off and this magnificent 
thing would have had to go empty. Won’t I 
look like a princess when this beautiful trunk 
comes bouncing up to my room! ” 

“ You’d better be careful, Gerry, not to 
make too good an impression or people will 


314 ‘fhe Little Cockalorum 

expect an awful lot of you, you know. Now 
you had better hurry and repack, or that man 
will be back again and you won’t be ready.” 

And so the dresses were hung smoothly on 
the hangers, the underclothes laid in the draw- 
ers, stockings stuffed in shoes and shoes put in 
their boxes, trinkets distributed in the small 
drawers, and hats pinned securely in their box. 

“Now I am going to dress so I can make 
a few good-bye calls before train time,” said 
Gerry. 

Four o’clock! Fifteen minutes of train 
time. The Oxford station and platform was 
crowded with people taking this popular train 
to the city. As Gerry drew up in the Sewells’ 
car, her heart was thumping with excitement. 
She had taken this same train often enough be- 
fore, but now somehow it all seemed so differ- 
ent. The old red brick station, the flower beds, 
the brusque ticket agent, all seemed to be parts 
of a play, and not the familiar things she had 
been seeing all her life. 

Russ, Dave, and Bob Schofield were there 
waiting for them. The boys were not to go 
until a few days later. Mr. Sewell had taken 
charge of their bags, but Gerry was still en- 


Good-Bye Oxford 1 315 

cumbered with umbrella, purse, top-coat which 
she had forgotten to pack, and an old tennis 
racket that needed restringing but which at 
the last minute she thought she would better 
take along. 

“ Can you pin a few posies on your coat, 
Gerry? ” greeted Russ, producing a mysteri- 
ous square box. 

“ If you’ll hold my belongings,” laughed 
Gerry. And then, “ Oh, Russ, aren’t you 
good! ” 

“ I ordered them both the same. I don’t 
want you girls quarreling before you get 
started, you know.” In the box were two cor- 
sage bouquets, both of sweetheart roses with 
long ribbons of pale blue taffeta. 

And then it was Dave’s turn. “ Do you 
suppose you can carry this, Gerry? Mother 
baked it early this morning so it would be 
fresh.” 

“Sticky cinnamon bun, I bet a cooky!” 
cried Gerry. 

“ Right! ” Dave grinned. 

“ We’ll carry it if we have to carry it on our 
heads like the Italian women with their bun- 
dles, won’t we, Adine? ” Adine had been sit- 


316 The Tittle Cockalorum 

ting quietly in the car talking to Bob Schofield. 
Now she came up with her mother and father. 
Gerry had said good-bye to her family at the 
house. 

“ I’m so afraid I will make a fool of myself 
if you come down to the station,” she had said, 
as she kissed her father over and over again, 
told Elizabeth to be sure and write, and teased 
Ted about missing her. 

“ Until Thanksgiving, folks dear! It won’t 
be so long,” she had cried as the Sewells had 
driven up for her. Then as she had pressed her 
father’s hand she had whispered, “ Keep it up, 
Daddy, I mean the magazine work, and get 
some things ready for the big exhibitions too. 
I want to brag about you to the girls I meet 
at Griffin! ” 

“ My Little Cockalorum is not cured yet,” 
were her father’s parting words. 

And now they could hear the rumble of the 
train; . everybody was crowding forward. 
“ Got everything, Gerry? You look like 
4 Peg o’ My Heart 5 with all your bundles. All 
you need is a dog,” teased Russ. 

And then the train was in, and they were 
piling into the Pullman. Gerry turned to 


Good-Bye Oxford! 317 

wave good-bye. A little old man was pushing 
his way through the crowd, holding a box high 
above his head. It was Dr. Honeywell. 

“ Dr. Honeywell! Dr. Honeywell! Here I 
am! Oh, it is good to see you!” Gerry 
started down the steps of the train, but a brake- 
man put out a restraining hand. 

“ Good-bye, my dear, and good luck,” called 
Dr. Honeywell. “ Give her this, will you 
please,” he said to the brakeman who was sig- 
nalling all aboard. “ It's the pair of posy 
vases,” he called through his cupped hands; 
“ thought you could use them! ” 

Gerry stood waving to the small group on 
the platform as the train pulled out, but they 
were nothing but a blurred smudge before her 
eyes. No, she wasn't homesick so soon, but 
suddenly she realized what she never had be- 
fore, that though college might bring new 
friends, new experiences, new thoughts, noth- 
ing would ever take the place in her heart of 
the dear people she was leaving behind in the 
sleepy old town she loved so well. 


The next Volume in this Series will be : 

THE LITTLE COCKALORUM AT COLLEGE 


















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